Overpopulation Might Not Be The Problem

in life •  7 years ago  (edited)

Now this was a little bit surprising to me. Overpopulation is one of the most discussed crises, next to climate change. Now there's an article depicting a contrary scenario.


Source

Could the population bomb be about to go off in the most unexpected way?

Overpopulation might not be the big problem. With further development of sustainable technology, earth could easily support more than 10 billion of us. At least there are many more factors to take into consideration than just the sheer numbers, as this article shows.

On the contrary, an implosion of population could also occur due to decreasing fertility rates. Yesterday Elon Musk shared a related article via twitter:

Could the population bomb be about to go off in the most unexpected way? We look at what the future might offer http://newscienti.st/2sQ46Nr

And the facts stated there are quite unsettling:

Half the world’s nations have fertility rates below the replacement level of just over two children per woman. Countries across Europe and the Far East are teetering on a demographic cliff, with rates below 1.5.

It furthers say:

For now, the world’s population continues to rise. [...] The UN predicts a continuing upward trend, with population reaching around 11.2 billion in 2100. But this seems unlikely. [...] Many demographers expect a global crash to be under way by 2076.

Actually Elon Musk already commented on this back in 2015:


Original Source: http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2015/09/10/elon-musk-population-implosion.cnnmoney/index.html

I heard about decreasing fertility rates here in Germany but I didn't know that it's a global issue. If that's also true for you, well... now you know.


Thank you for your attention!


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  ·  7 years ago (edited)

You're right , and we can see this trend in the us too : http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/11/health/us-lowest-fertility-rate/index.html
Africa's countries has the biggest Fertility rate :
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
It might mean that the world's population will still growth and change.

That's the big question. Which of those trends is stronger and will have more significance. It just showed me again that there are always two sides to every question.

I found two very interesting articles about this :

https://ourworldindata.org/future-world-population-growth/
https://www.indy100.com/article/the-future-of-religion-in-7-maps-and-charts--lyPkmFpgJW

So yes, the population is changing and those changes are really interesting :

The world religions spread is changing which begs the question : what will be the geopolitical consequences of that.

Oh I don't dare to make a prediction on this... :D But thanks for the interesting statistics!

It does seem that greater reliance on modern technology and greater standards of living are correlated with lower population growth and an older population. Japan is a big example of this.

I wonder if they could have asked more of The Right Questions?