Seems not too far back folks were getting heated up about a “population explosion” while prognosticating all sorts of mischievous malediction and mayhem.

Fifty years ago, the sainted Rev. Dr. Alfred M. Rehwinkel, professor of ethics and church history at my alma mater Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, produced a book seeking to exorcise the wraith of wanton fecundity through the promotion of contraception among Christians. The book was entitled Planned Parenthood and Birth Control in the Light of Christian Ethics (Concordia Publishing House, 1959). On page 13 Rehwinkel warned,

More than the total population of France is added to the world’s population every year. And if this continues unhampered for another 2 centuries, the world’s population will stand at the fantastic figure of 22 billion, and in 3 1/2 centuries there would be 32 people for every person living now, which would add up to 80 billion. If that should happen, there would hardly be standing room left.

Just typing that quote has left me. . . breathless.

And yet, never fear, dear reader; simply fast forward fifty years. According to Phillip Longman of the New American Foundation,

If you need another megatrend to worry about, fixate instead on the growing prospects for world depopulation and what it means for you and your children (assuming you have any). Yes, human population is still growing in some places dramatically so. But at the same time, a strange new phenomenon is spreading around the globe, one whose very existence contradicts the deepest foundations of our modern mind-set.

Yes, that’s right. The United Nations, according to Longman, is predicting a population decline.

Starting in the world’s richest, best-fed nations during the 1970s, and now spreading throughout the developing world, we find birthrates falling below the levels needed to avoid long-term, and in many instances, short-term, population loss. The phenomenon has spread beyond Europe and Asia to Latin America.

Practically sends chills up my spine. Or, perhaps that heating pad is on the fritz again.

You can read Mr. Longman’s article, which appeared as an op/ed piece in USA Today, here.

UPDATE, APRIL 1:

Thanks to Mr. Longman for sending me the link to the UN’s World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision. You can have your own fun with regional or world population by clicking here.  

I’m also happy to report that, from 2010 to 2050, there will only be a nine-person per sq. km increase in population in the US.