Passive Population Control and Environmentalism

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Prior warning: This is from my heart and head and I am more than willing to be corrected with statistics.

I believe in what I call passive population control. It's not as bad as the name sounds and I admit the name sounds dodgy. Essentially it revolves around a few courses of action in order to protect the environment without intruding greatly upon the populace.

First, let's discuss the populace. The populace is rapidly growing at what I believe is an unsustainable rate. We need to slow down before we start taking too much of the land away from nature and animals. The fact that 3D printing of food will be necessary in the future is a sad indicator of our inability to hold the population to a sustainable growth rate. In the absence of a one world government, these policies are for the United States of America as that is where I live.

The more people there are and the more automation, technology, and exporting of jobs become a part of our permanent reality, then there will be more unemployed and underemployed Americans. This will create a strain upon our economy and our welfare systems.

Therefore I suggest we do the following:

- Levy a tax on families for each child over two children.
------ This tax for each 3rd, 4th, etc. child will serve to discourage more children from being born. Adopted children will be tax free so that this encourages people to welcome orphans/abandoned children into their families.

- Levy a small tax families on homes (and owners of commercial buildings) that occupy over a certain amount of on-ground square footage based on size of family.
------ This tax will encourage the use of vertical space in home building. Exemptions for elderly/disabled individuals who require a one story home.

- Implement a points based immigration system with flat quota. Deny Visas to any family with more than three children.
----- Students of history will shudder at the thought of immigration quotas making a return, however these quotas would not take into account ethnicity, nation, or skin colour. Essentially, it's the amount of immigrants allowed to migrate into the US per year and would be adjusted every ten years. Points based immigration system primarily based on profession and demand for said profession.

- Financially incentivize vasectomies and "tube ties" by means of either tax credit or subsidy for men and women who already have two children. These operations would strictly be elective. Welfare recipients could elect for free operations to receive a one time lump sum of cash. (I'm on welfare at the moment and don't want kids - for the record)

- Significant tax credits to businesses and homeowners who elect to install solar panels/wind turbines on their respective properties.

These are just a few of the things I can think of that could discourage rampant population growth and help our environment, at least in North America.

The rate is steadily dropping on its own.

http://www.multpl.com/us-population-growth-rate/table/by-year

This year in the U.S. the population growth rate is 0.73%
Last year it was 0.75%
The year before it was 0.76%
In 2000 it was 1.12%
In 1990 it was 1.14%. The 1990s were years of considerable population growth with rates that were in the 0.9 %'s most of the time and peaked at 1.40% in 1992.
The 1980's were similar, although topping out at 0.99% growth rate.
In 1970 it was 1.17%
In 1960 it was 1.60%
I'm sure you are seeing the trend. From a mid-century high of 2.07% in 1950, it has steadily dropped. The overall numbers go up but the rate is going down. The only time that mid-century high was beaten was 1910 at 2.12%, due to truly massive immigration.
It was -0.06% in 1918, the year of the deadly Influenza pandemic. The saddest way to slow the rate.

Stepping outside the U.S., here are recent population growth rates around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate

Lebanon at 9.73% is the highest in the world. But if you scroll down the list, it is exactly balanced by Syria's -9.73%. What is going on there? Maybe somebody with a better handle on Middle Eastern politics knows why Lebanon is growing at the exact rate that Syria is shrinking.

In any case, there are a lot of countries with negative population growth rates that balance out the ones with positive population growth rates. Although a chunk of that must be measuring the exact same people as they leave one country and go to another, shifting the balance of both countries.

The world overall has a population growth rate of 1.17%. That seems high until you consider that it was 2.1% in 1964, an international peak that led understandably to much panic in the 1960's about population growth. But that was a peak and it's been falling ever since even as the literal number grew.
http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-statistics/world-population-growth/

Population is not a issue in the US(or anywhere really for that matter), in Africa and Bangladesh maybe but there aren't enough people having kids where it isn't uncommon to have 10+ kids but in our country as we are now below replacement level. We want the birthrate in the US and Europe to go up and for it to go down in Africa and South Asia

Bangladesh, with its growth rate of 1.60% (as of 2013) isn't particularly standout. In fact it is 77th in the world. That puts it below many African countries, which are in the 2-3% rate, although Zimbabwe is at 4.36% rate, along with many countries in Latin America but far below world outlier Lebanon with 9.73%. Is Face-of-Boo surrounded by babies and toddlers????

Interestingly, the African country of Guyana is an African outlier of negative growth rate with -0.11%.

The people who are really dropping like rocks with negative growth rate are Eastern Europeans, Russians, anyone who was formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Russia -0.03% (as of 2013)
Georgia -0.11%
Slovenia -0.23%
Serbia -0.46%
Ukraine -0.64%
Bulgaria -0.83%

Did somebody put birth control in the Black Sea or are they all just leaving?

You're right about Bangladesh, it is at around replacement level, I was just thinking of a country where overpopulation might be a real issue. Guyana is in South America, borders Venezuela to the east and probably most known as the country where the Jonestown massacre took place. Russia has actually done a lot in the last few years in to turn their demographic problems around, they've risen their fertility rate by quite just over the last few years thru considerable effort from the government.

The first/second world needs to increase its birthrate dramatically, the third world needs to decrease. Simple as that.

woops