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Earth's Population Predicted To Peak In 2070

Posted by timothy on from the just-in-time-for-my-retirement dept.

canning writes "This article from MSNBC reports the results from a new study that states the world's population will peak in the year 2070. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the study's authors, say they have developed "a statistical computer model that considers uncertainties in migration, mortality and birth rates". The story is displayed on their home page.
The article has been discussed in other publications such as New Scientist and National Geographic. Also news agency Reuters, newspapers Washington Post, Guardian, and broadcasting stations BBC and ABC.
The Nature article can be found here."

1 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Using historical data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    i agree with you about the "rising after falling"-comment. from a purely pragmatic standpoint, anything that self-replicates (hey, we almost have cloning now, right?) will continue to do so until it runs out of resources.

    last i checked the human mind keeps expanding its ability to use resources into new domains fairly well. (hey when was the last time YOU were satisfied with a 540MB hdd?)

    thus, humans will continue to propogate until we a) run out of resources. or b) run afoul of a predator.

    barring et's (THAT's one i dont believe yet), we have been pretty good about staying at the top of the food chain...

    2070 is WAY too short a time-span to make any reasonable prediction about the population "peaking", imho. of course, if id READ the article, maybe it only would classify this as a "local" maxima, which MAY be reasonable - altho i personally doubt that one also...

    sig - if the population "peaks", does that mean it will be harder to find a date for saturday?