The world population currently stands at about 7 billion people, and the United Nations expects that to grow to 9 or 10 billion by the end of the century. But populations generally don't stay at the same level for long periods of time--they tend to cycle up and down, and sometimes, if they've grown in ways that are unsustainable, they crash. How do we avoid this fate and keep the world on a sustainable path?
This question is being put to a panel of experts at the Affordable World Security Conference in Washington, D.C. on March 27. Led by cientific American executive editor Fred Guterl, author of the forthcoming book Fate of the Species (Bloomsbury). Panelists include:
WOLFGANG LUTZ, founding director of the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna, Austria. People often look at population simply as so many mouths to feed, but Lutz focuses in his work on how people can be engines of growth and change.
SYLVIA EARLE is former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is an oceanographer, author and lecturer.
MARTIN LEES is former Assistant Secretary General at the United Nations and Secretary General of the Club of Rome. He is now a senior advisor to the Chinese government on climate change and other issues.
GEORGE POLK is former CEO of THE CLOUD, a broadband wireless network operator in Europe. In 2007, he began working as a philanthropist focusing on climate change, most recently at the Catalyst Project, which seeks to jumpstart low-carbon growth plans for developing countries.
Tjhe session begins at 4 PM ET, but you can see other sessions as well. The full schedule of the conference, which runs through Wednesday, here (pdf).
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Add CommentMaybe it's just me, but the focus of the conference seemed to have been future security for the preservation of current institutions of economic power in a rapidly destabilizing global economic environment. Understandable, but not necessarily the most critical scientific concern for most people. It is admittedly the most viable candidate source of funding for such a conference...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile, unless I'm missing something, the live proceedings seems to be a bunch of meaningless tweets from a bunch of meaningless twits... Sorry - that's just my personal impression.
What I don't understand is why people ignore the fact that when man-made (unnatural) means provide food for a population, that population increases beyond what its immediate environment can support. When the 'man-made' food production fails or flounders, or when the population number surpasses the capacity of the system, famine ensues with a greater number of people suffering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNature normally provides only so much food for a population. This limited amount of resources naturally keeps the population in check. Less damage is done to that species, and the environment around it, as a result.
Instead of addressing *how* to feed and provide for a growing population, why not address the growth itself?
Global and or solar warming may have been partly averted by chem-trails. As far as my projection of world population, I expect 200 million at the end of the east/west war. Or less. 2.5 billion at the end of 2013.or less
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn acre of land can support X number of people say in Africa.. The outside world artificially supports X with food. Human nature being what it is X has more children , Survival of the species! This makes more X to feed and support.... We watch this on TV...People starving through no real fault of there own!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPopulation control needs to be encouraged and supported by the UN.
What happen to zero population growth that was suppose to be encouraging in the US? In stead The US gives tax incentives to have children....!
If we don't take care of this population crisis..nature will! bird flu, Aids, plague..... Remember, the experiment with rats in the cage and over crowding..... humans in a cage with limited resources!
Indeed. Over-population affects stress in populations that many not be otherwise ill. This stress then manifests in diseases, both mental and physical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to make a case for isolationism here. Who want's to be involved in all the implications of a global economy with nine billion people?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe worst mistake is trying to sustain a world with seven billion people. That only gets you a world with nine billion people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we can just hang in for 30, 40 years -- provide ever more food, somehow, anyhow -- then surely climate change can be depended upon to crash almost everything, cause the necessary involuntary reductions of population (by hunger, thirst, war, disease) and we will be spared the problem of meeting the problem LETXEQUALX mentions -- that it is a mistake even to try to sustain 7B people today because we cannot possibly keep up with the population-growth treadmill. If we support 7B today, we'll need to feed 9B tomorrow, then 11B people day after, etc., and there must (one would imagine) be a limit to the powers of green revolutions. Unless you believe in perpetual motion! (Those who thought the green revolution of the 60s was OK because people would voluntarily limit populations badly misread human nature and the vast reluctance of politicians to do anything whatever if it be a bit difficult. (Think climate change prevention.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisModern cereals have been selected for their high starch content, hence obese consumers. Also they require large quantities of intrants. Old varieties of cereals are rich in proteins and trace nutrients and demand less intrants. Such grain gives poor people a balanced cheaper diet, as they would need to eat less meat. And obese people would have healthy diets if they ate such bread.
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