World population

[dspp]

About as macro a topic as it comes

Two centuries of rapid global population growth will come to an end



https://ourworldindata.org/world-popula ... ast-future

[funduffer]

Interesting chart, but I think peak population could occur much earlier, and at lower than 10 billion. I have seen a number of articles recently saying the UN are over-estimating peak population.

The chart is based on fertility rates due to urbanisation and improved standards of living, however I suspect other factors will come into play.

I would say that the planet will not have sufficient resources to support 10 billion at a reasonable standard of living, and this will lead to conflict over the scarce resources remaining, such as oil, water, agricultural land, and other minerals.

Then there are the additional risks of disease due to a lack of antibiotics, rising sea levels, and climate change reducing the amount of agricultural land for supporting this size of population.

Hate to sound like a prophet of doom, but I do worry for my grandchildren.

FD

[monabri]

What a mess!

[Archtronics]

Whenever controling population discusions come up, I often think back to the population bomb by Professor Paul R. Ehrlich.

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate"

Personally I think we can cope with the projected population increase, there is plenty of scope to make worldwide agriculture more efficient along with lifestyle changes, eating bugs etc.
We got to the moon in 9 years, the Ozone layer is on track to be repaired by the 2030s, I don't buy into the pessimistic attitude going around.

[kiloran]

In other words, mother nature will cross the ball and mankind will head it into the back of the net.

Ah, but at which end of the pitch?

--kiloran

[JoyofBrex8889]

It is very difficult to see a good outcome: the classic systems theory study by the Club of Rome predicts a collapse, and as I understand it over the last couple of decades we are closely following the path predicted by their base reference case.

[EssDeeAitch]

Interesting chart, but I think peak population could occur much earlier, and at lower than 10 billion. I have seen a number of articles recently saying the UN are over-estimating peak population.

The chart is based on fertility rates due to urbanisation and improved standards of living, however I suspect other factors will come into play.

I would say that the planet will not have sufficient resources to support 10 billion at a reasonable standard of living, and this will lead to conflict over the scarce resources remaining, such as oil, water, agricultural land, and other minerals.

Then there are the additional risks of disease due to a lack of antibiotics, rising sea levels, and climate change reducing the amount of agricultural land for supporting this size of population.

Hate to sound like a prophet of doom, but I do worry for my grandchildren.

FD

According data extracted by Hans Rosling (Swedish physician, academic, statistician - and a very entertaining one at that, sadly deceased) the world population will peak at around 11 billion. See this very short video on his website, Gapminder

https://www.gapminder.org/answers/how-r ... -forecast/

Source data
http://folk.uio.no/keilman/Popstudies3.pdf

[redsturgeon]

I don't think the planet can support the current population at 'a reasonable standard of living' (or at least my idea of a reasobable standard of living).

We're killing everything that moves, but the biggest concern must be the warming oceans.

I have little doubt that we could support the present population and even up to 10-11 billion but it would require such a major change in people"s expectations of the consumer lifestyle that politically I think would not be achievable.

We certainly can't all live at the standards and footprint of the average American or European but there could be a halfway house that allows sustainable and fulfilling lives for all...Utopia I know but we can dream.


John

[JoyofBrex8889]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

I imagine many here will have read the original study.

“There is unsettling evidence that society is still following the ‘standard run’ of the original study – in which overshoot leads to an eventual collapse of production and living standards.”

From: All-Party Parliametary Group on Limits to Growth report 2016.

Reference: http://limits2growth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Jackson-and-Webster-2016-Limits-Revisited.pdf

[monabri]

Professor Brian Cox (7 mins of how we (can't) solve the energy crisis - pick up at 21:00mins into the video)

And this assumes we carry on using fossil fuels and population growth is not yet factored in.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3rg7x0

Are the numbers realistic ?