Now that's a switch

This from the Wall St. Journal:

Secretary General Kofi Annan didn't use the B-word himself. But babies plainly were on the minds of some delegates in Madrid this week for a new United Nations conference pegged to a challenge it says is "without parallel in the history of humanity": a rapidly graying world population.

By 2050, the U.N. projects, people over 60 years old will
outnumber those 15 and under for the first time in history.
Calling the trend "alarming," European Union Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou cited Europe's "low
birth rates" and lack of family-friendly policies as the
culprits. Ms. Diamantopoulou knows that at bottom an
"aging crisis" is another way of saying you're not
producing enough young people.

After decades of Malthusian gloom and doom, suddenly we have crisis of underpopulation! Why? Because our social security programs are built on the assumption of continuous growth, in essence a Ponzi scheme.

It will be interesting to see how the environmental fundraisers deal with this. I expect denial first. Maybe we will change our minds about immigrants, but we'll have to compete with European nations who will be unable to maintain their economies without importing laborers.