AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE TO PONDER

(From the Synopsis to the Film: http://www.demographicwinter.com/)

One of the most ominous events of modern history is quietly unfolding. Social scientists and economists agree – we are headed toward a “demographic winter” which threatens to have catastrophic social and economic consequences. The effects will be severe and long lasting and are already becoming manifest in much of Europe.

Demographic Winter draws upon experts from all around the world: demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, civic and religious leaders, parliamentarians and diplomats. Together, they reveal the dangers facing society and the world’s economies, dangers far more imminent than global warming and at least as severe. These experts discussed how:

• The “population bomb”, not only lacked the predicted consequences, but almost all the developed countries of the world are now experiencing fertility rates far below replacement levels. Birthrates have fallen so low that even immigration cannot replace declining populations, and this migration is sapping strength from developing countries, while the fertility rates for many, are now falling at a faster pace than those of developed countries.
• The economies of the world will continue to contract, as the “human capital” spoken of by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker, diminishes. The engines of commerce will be strained as the workers of today fail to replace themselves and are burdened by the responsibility of supporting an aging population.
• Government programs will slowly-bleed out by the decrease in tax dollars received from an ever-shrinking work force. The skyrocketing ratio of the old retirees to the young workers will render current-day social security systems completely unable to support the aging population.

• Our attempts to modernize through social engineering policies and programs have left children growing up in broken homes, with absentee parents and little exposure to extended family. Disconnected from the generations, these children are experiencing severe psychological, sociological and economic consequences. The intact family’s immeasurable role in the development and prosperity of human societies is crumbling.
• The influence of social and economic problems on ever shrinking, increasingly disconnected, generations will compound and accelerate the deterioration. Our children and our children’s children will bear the economic and social burden of regenerating the “human capital”, that accounts for 80% of wealth in the economy, and they will be ill-equipped to do so.

Is there a “tipping point” after which the accelerating consequences will make recovery impossible without complete social and economic collapse? Even the experts cannot tell us how far we can go down this road, oblivious to the outcomes, until we reach a point where sliding into the void becomes unpreventable.

Only if the political incorrectness of talking about the natural family within policy circles is overcome will solutions begin to be found. Once found, these solutions will necessarily result in policy changes, changes that will support and promote the natural, intact family.

Just as it took the cumulative involvement of activist organizations, policy makers, the business world and the media to create the unintended consequences we are beginning to experience, so it will take the holistic contribution of all of these entities, together with civic and religious organizations, to change the hearts and minds of all of society to bring about a reversal.  Even corporations will need to play a role.

It may be too late to avoid some severe consequences of a “Demographic Winter.”  On the other hand, some will argue that there is no threat posed by it; or even that the threat is instead a growing human population. You are now in the province of informed discussion. The warnings voiced in this film, which represent the “other side” of more popular and politically correct opinion, have had their day with you and you can make up your own mind as to what position you will take, and how you will choose to live your life as it relates to the children you might – or might not – bring into our world.