Just over 200 years ago, in the year 1800, there were approximately one billion people on the planet. Just a century later, the population had grown by another 600 million.
Today, there are around 8 billion people living on earth, and according to the UN, it is reaching a peak in 2086 with 10.4 billion people.
According to one the study is this growth unsustainable for our ecosphere, and there is a risk of a “population correction” before the end of the century.
It is the Canadian researcher and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Canada, William Rees, who prepared the study. It is published in the journal World.
He argues that we are using up the earth’s resources at an unsustainable rate, and that our natural tendencies as humans make it difficult for us to correct this.
In the study, Rees writes:
“Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically and consume all available resources”.
The result could be a kind of civilizational collapse “that corrects” the world’s population, says the researcher, according to the report Science Alert.
In a worst-case scenario, this could happen before the end of the century, he believes.
Scientists do not think we will exceed 11 billion people
– Disagrees
Biologist and professor Dag O. Hessen is familiar with Rees’ article, but does not completely agree with him.
– The probability of a collapse of civilization is present locally and regionally in the sense that infrastructure and production systems break down, but I find it hard to imagine it happening globally, says Hessen to Dagbladet.
And he believes a population collapse is far less likely.
– I don’t believe in mass death. We are a robust species, he says.
However, he believes that parts of the planet may become uninhabitable, that we may have massive migrations and difficult times.
– Population growth can slow down faster than we have thought, says Hessen, who has previously discussed the topic in an article at Forskning.no.
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– Moves back
If you take the term “collapse” literally, you have to go back to the Stone Age, at least pre-industrial times, points out Hessen, who does not think it will happen in the next 80 years.
– Collapse is a violent word, which means that we move back to the beginning. However, I think we must expect major changes, and there is no doubt that there are difficult times ahead, says Hessen.
– As a result of extreme weather, I think we will have more regional and local collapse, and a decline in goods and services. I think the whole world will experience great trials, and that there will be a global decline in living standards, he says.
He further believes that there are many reasons to abandon the idea of further consumer growth and purchasing power.
– You can see that floods, fires, heat and extreme weather claim lives and go beyond the production apparatus, and this will worsen considerably, says Hessen.
– Expression of opinion
It is worth noting that the magazine World, in which Rees has published his predictions, is owned by the publisher MDPI, writes Forskning.no.
They are a commercial publisher that charges for publication. The publisher publishes a great many articles and has been criticized for the fact that the peer review is not always as thorough.
Hessen tells Dagbladet that this in itself is no reason to write off the article.
– It has become quite common with such payment journals. However, this is Rees’ opinion, as he interprets the available data. It’s the same thing I do here, but I arrive at a somewhat different conclusion, says Hessen.
2023-09-26 01:27:38
#Scientists #fear #collapse
