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'The World Might Actually Run Out of People' (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: By 2050 there will be 9 billion carbon-burning, plastic-polluting, calorie-consuming people on the planet. By 2100, that number will balloon to 11 billion, pushing society into a Soylent Green scenario. Such dire population predictions aren't the stuff of sci-fi; those numbers come from one of the most trusted world authorities, the United Nations. But what if they're wrong? Not like, off by a rounding error, but like totally, completely goofed?
That's the conclusion Canadian journalist John Ibbitson and political scientist Darrel Bricker come to in their newest book, Empty Planet, due out February 5th. After painstakingly breaking down the numbers for themselves, the pair arrived at a drastically different prediction for the future of the human species. "In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline," they write. "Once that decline begins, it will never end." But Empty Planet is not a book about statistics so much as it is about what's driving the choices people are making during the fastest period of change in human history.
That's the conclusion Canadian journalist John Ibbitson and political scientist Darrel Bricker come to in their newest book, Empty Planet, due out February 5th. After painstakingly breaking down the numbers for themselves, the pair arrived at a drastically different prediction for the future of the human species. "In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline," they write. "Once that decline begins, it will never end." But Empty Planet is not a book about statistics so much as it is about what's driving the choices people are making during the fastest period of change in human history.
The number of places like that have grown over the last 100 years. Once it covers enough of the population of the earth, the decline will being.
12 billion will be the top.
Until then, every watches TV, posts on Facebook and tweets instead of having sex.
PS. If you haven't watched his TED talks, you should do so now, they are amazing.
There's good evidence that female education is the dominant factor affecting fertility rate. A stable government is generally necessary, but not sufficient, for high female education rates.
There are lots of examples of stable governments that had big population growth problems though. Bangladesh is the usual case study. The government tried all kids of programs aimed at reducing the birth rate and nothing much worked. Then the education department, completely independently, decided it would be a good idea for girls to go to school, and the fertility rate fell from one of the highest in the world to close to replacement.
Agreed. And perhaps most obviously, a reduction in population almost certainly means a redution in population density and personal stress, both of which reduce fertility rates in many/most mammals.
Even a 99% reduction in population from current levels wouldn't be real a problem (aside from the logistics of supporting a shrinking, elder-heavy population), in fact a return to 1800-level population would eliminate virtually all of the major problems our species is currently facing. And trying to project current trends into a world with with 100x more land and resources per person than today, along with the benefits of much-better-than-modern automation? Sheer foolishness.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Relax. The US (electoral college) elected Trump.
Wrong.
I know this is off topic but, the US elected him through the rules established during the founding of our nation so that the popular majority could not just dictate the rules everyone else must follow.
If you don't understand why those rules were chosen instead of pick our favorite person for four years, then you need to go back to history class and learn a little more about how governments prior to the US's worked; as the founder members did. Spoiler alert, the majority did some pretty awful things under the guise of improvement for all. Majority rule usually leads to mob mentality, which never fairs well in the end.
As far as the fox reference, I'd say he is more like a dodo bird; but I see where you were going.
Either way the current person of interest will be out of office at some point. The media will then either crucify or glorify the next person of interest for the next 4 years, and so on, and so on, and so on! Its what makes the world go around.
P.S. I'm still not sure hiring that hacker guy was the right move.
The Greeks and Romans weren't destroying entire ecosystems and devastating entire oceans and sources of fresh water....
Yes, yes, they were. In fact, even the indigenous folks of the North American content were doing it -- they hunted the Woolly Mammoth to extinction and they didn't even have running water or horses.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The Greeks and Romans weren't destroying entire ecosystems
Yes they were. North Africa was known as "the breadbasket of the Roman Empire". Today it is the Sahara Desert. Destructive farming practices destroyed millions of tonnes of topsoil. They also exterminated many species, including the North African Elephant.