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NEW YORK -- What would the world look like with 7 billion human beings in the mix, vying for resources? Pretty much what it looks like now.
That's because the planet is about to pass the 7 billion mark any day now. Or maybe it already has, according to academics at Columbia University.
Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at Columbia, briefed attendees here this week during an Earth Institute gathering on the subject. The conference was meant to celebrate, raise awareness and sound a few alarms regarding a U.N. estimate that the 7 billionth human is due to join the party Oct. 31.
To Cohen, whether the Earth will be able to sustain 7 billion humans, 9 billion or 10 billion will "depend on choices we and future generations make." He added that we may have already crested over 7 billion for the first time, though pinpointing an exact date on the threshold is next to impossible.
"The truth is we have never censused the entire Earth," Cohen said. "The U.S. Census, which costs billions, has an error of 1 to 2 percent."
What is clear is the Earth is poised to pass the mark, making it 12 years since we passed 6 billion in 1999 and 12 more years since 5 billion in 1987. More broadly, the 7 billionth addition to Homo sapiens represents a spurt of 4 billion people in five decades.
Cohen calls the phenomenon an "extreme explosion [that] ... has no precedent" in the history of human evolution. The growth rate prior to the mid-20th century was much slower and had effectively held steady for thousands of years until the 19th century's Industrial Revolution.
"That is an exceptional event and will probably never be repeated within human history," he said during a lecture here. "Not within the next few centuries, anyway."
'5 sub-Saharan Africans for every European'
Looking ahead, Cohen expects total fertility rates to drop almost everywhere by the end of the century. This pattern is already in evidence in Europe and the United States and eventually will trickle into less-developed nations as they raise their economic profile and education levels, he said.
Barring an apocalypse, Cohen predicts the Earth will hit 8 billion humans in another 12 years, then 9.3 billion by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100.
More remarkable than the numbers perhaps is how the demographics within that growth rate will shift. Cohen says that by 2100, the African continent will have overwhelmed a historic balance among continents, with "five sub-Saharan Africans for every European."
"You can only imagine that might have an impact geopolitically," he said.
The good news is that with the steady increase over the past half-century has come improved life expectancy to a global average of 70 years. The bad news is dwindling natural resources, food and water could mean 1 billion starving people across Africa and South Asia's "hunger belt" sooner than many think.
Whether the planet's supply of energy, water, food and other resources can handle the demand is an open question. Cohen says the Earth is finite, and fresh water in particular could be in short supply for about 10 percent of the planet by 2100.
The same dynamic is evident for agriculture, as farming already consumes about 40 percent of ice-free land. If that pattern continues to hold or increase, less forests to meet the demand for food could mean a corresponding uptick in carbon emissions worldwide.
Cities are likely to feel the brunt of the growth as humans continue their migration from rural areas to urban. Cohen says the small city (of about 1 million) is the future of urban life, and he feels civilization needs to do better at paying attention to their design.
"We are going to need to construct a city of a million people every five days for the next 40 years," he said.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause the population of the world ultimately affects most of the issues that we all really care about, the 7 Billion: It's Time to Talk campaign is working to open up the conversation on population to new audiences around the globe. When everyone recognizes that there is a need to talk openly about population growth and the importance of family planning, the empowerment of women, and reproductive health and rights, we can more easily find the solutions to issues like global hunger and the environment. When people discover how a rapidly growing world population affects them and their hopes for the future, we know that more people, particularly young adults, will want to lend their voices to the global discussion.
"whether the Earth can sustain 7, 9 or 10 billion?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'd better ask if the Earth can sustainably feed 1, 2 or 3 billion.
http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven when the population was less than half of what it is today, people were still starving. At a higher per capita, even.
Check out the video series at the link above - very entertaining and educational.
"an enormous potential from a European standpoint." those who talk of great economic potential seem to be missing the boat. Market success is based on growth. How can we grow if we don't have the resources? We need to think of new economic paradigms that aren't growth and consumption based but instead are based on managing what we have, encouraging a more equitable distribution of wealth and significant reduction in resource intensive goods such cars and military spending. Greed is not good. It will leave with nothing in the end.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJP that is flawed logic. Reasoning that because a lower population in the past had an even harder time feeding themselves than we do now is evidence that the larger the population the fewer people will starve is begging the question. The green revolution and improvements in transportation and refrigeration made it possible to feed more people with the same piece of land. That does not prove that such improvements will continue ad-infinitum. Compare the increase of crop yields over the past 20 years with the increase in population. People who try to reduce problems down to simple geometric progressions are suffering from Dunning-Kruger and should leave the heavy intellectual lifting to those with more than a grade 5 education.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the increase of the world population is the main problem of the current world that has caused many other problems .As a result of overpopulation we have faced many other problems like lack of the nutrition supplies in some countries or having terrible traffics in most big cities around the world or increasing the percentage of unemployment and so forth. This has been started many years ago due to being unaware from the results of that by the people who never have thought that one day this will be a real problem and will threaten themselves and next generations.What should we do now to avoid the aggravating of this important issue?The only thing that we should do in this stage is that we have to inform the people all over the world and indicate them the affects of that in the next years.Although many western countries have done some measures ,but they were not sufficient to avoid this real problem .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the duty of all governments to force mediums to do that .It should be done also by some worldwide organizations.
We are possibly heading into the biggest economic disruption that the world has seen for many a year. Food could become scarce just about everywhere for quite some time. So all planning for a huge increase in population size could have little benefit other than as an academic exercise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a very strong possibility that world population size could decrease by as much as 60% over the next 50-100 years which is the amount the European population reduced by in the 12 century alone.
Except for Australia there are very few places where another pandemic would not be disastrous once all the planes stop flying which should be one of the first things to happen when the world monetary system fails.
Alternatively should gold come back as money thereby reducing the size of governments then everyone might have a better chance of avoiding the four horsemen.
Let there be a global campaign to educate and persuade the people to turn to a plant-based food (vegetarianism) and then see how the food problem resolves itself. Meat is a criminal wastage of resources. How many kilos (lb) of grains are needed to produce 1 kilo of meat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI expect a population crash as well as increased famine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBernardPalmer: The Gold Standard helped CAUSE the Great Depression in the U.S. in the early 1930's and going OFF the Gold Standard later helped revive the economy. Diamonds are more rare than gold. Why not go on a 'Diamond Standard'...only diamonds can be used as currency ?...this is ridiculous..tying currency value to some commodity is a recipe for disaster.
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