World population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 – UN report

I hope this is suitable forum for it.

Yesterday UN released their report on this, which I personally find interesting.

The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years and reach 9.6 billion by 2050, according to a United Nations report launched today, which points out that growth will be mainly in developing countries, with more than half in Africa.

The report, World Population Prospects: the 2012 Revision, notes that the population of developed regions will remain largely unchanged at around 1.3 billion from now until 2050. In contrast, the 49 least developed countries are projected to double in size from around 900 million people in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050.

Compared to previous assessments of world population trends, the new projected total population is higher, mainly due to new information obtained on fertility levels of certain countries. For example, in 15 high-fertility countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the estimated average number of children per woman has been adjusted upwards by more than 5 per cent.

[…] rapid growth is expected to continue over the next few decades in countries with high levels of fertility such as Nigeria, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda but also Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, where there are more than five children per woman.”

The report notes that India is expected to become the world’s largest country, passing China around 2028, when both countries will have populations of 1.45 billion. After that, India’s population will continue to grow and China’s is expected to start decreasing. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s population is expected to surpass that of the United States before 2050.

Europe’s population is projected to decline by 14 per cent, the report states, and Mr. Wilmoth warned that the continent is already facing challenges in providing care and support for a rapidly aging population.

www.un.org...

9.6 is a large estimate in my opinion. Overpopulation is already a problem, especially in certain areas in the third-world. This large population growth would affect the environment in these countries a lot. Nigeria has already taken down most of their forests (only around 10%, maybe a bit more left).The country is roughly ten times smaller than USA by area, although the population would be similar. Also the resources needed for such a large number of people will be a lot, especially considering the amount of arable land is declining. But well, the future will show how this problem will be dealt with.

It's scary to know what would happen in the future. Humans are breeding like rabbits and we're destroying the Earth without caring about the consequences.

Well...thank god for Mosantos GMO crops, we can keep up with the huge demand for an increasing food supply

Never happen.

Plans are already in place to prevent it I would assume.

AAC

With our current economic manufacturing model, adopted around the world, we cannot sustain every familyin the world to have their own house, vehicle and quick access to food. It's impossible. So why bother?

Originally posted by AnAbsoluteCreation
Never happen.

Plans are already in place to prevent it I would assume.

AAC

Assumptions only go so far. Unless you back stab the old man sitting underground with his finger over the launch button, I don't see how your "Assumed plans" will work.
Oh wait, you mean like a nuclear holocaust? then I think you might be on to something.
A natural disaster is another way of bringing down the numbers...and lets not forget the PLAGUE, my personal favorite.

China has been preparing with their fully operable ghost cities.

reply to post by cass1dy09


Not going to happen . Have you noticed in the last 20 years the CDC seems to be looking for a pandemic that would wipe out masses of people . I have read the Eugenics Quotes of some of the Bilderbergers .They are advocating an 80% plus cut in population . I don't think they are interested in a long term program. There seems to be a great interest in advancing the lethality of bird flu . Ebola would serve their purpose but the infection kills too fast to infect large groups of people . The Dutch scientist worked to make Bird flu more transmissible and thought they had a 50% mortality rate . Why did they work so hard to create a terrible pandemic for the worlds population ? Who funded that tremendously expensive program and why?
Eugenics Quotes and lofty ideas of Bilderbergers .

There are going to have to be some major changes in the way the world is run if it's going to support 9.6 billion people. That's a lot of people.

I have a sudden craving for some green crackers now.

reply to post by Junkheap


That movie Soylent Green seems to be coming true soon.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
With our current economic manufacturing model, adopted around the world, we cannot sustain every familyin the world to have their own house, vehicle and quick access to food. It's impossible. So why bother?

I think maybe because it's a task we have given ourselves collectively but yes that assumes we chose this role and all agreed to play it. I feel in my core the grand scheme of things reflect this idea...At least for me. We've drifted from our innate knowledge of this because the message of those who would see us as just so many cows in a meadow is hypnotic by design and as such...Enslaves us. We have to "bother" because collectively we need to get this right, find a balance in this reality and in doing so, evolve into a species that is sustainable while also contributing to the understanding and health of all that is.

Britain is already being swamped with Nigerians and Indians - can't imagine what the country will be like in 2050.

The only solace I can draw is I'll probably be dead then.

reply to post by minkmouse


Very well said.

But that would require people to act outside of themselves...and that only happens when the great disaster has already happened. I hate to say it be complacency is going to be our worst enemy. Well complacency, secrecy, greed, entitlement, and the ego

The OP doesn't cause me any worry about world over-population. I am now concerned about regional over-population. Speking in general terms, the developed world will have space and resources, the un-developed world won't.

Crowded, starving, masses of people in parts of the world. Ok, now, what's the plan? Put them all up in Idaho? Aerial spray they un-developed world with contraceptive aerosols? Unleash a short-lived but lethal plague? Don't sell them any more pesticide or fertilizer? Have Michelle show them how to plant arugula?

Cutting back on the fertility of the women of Massachusetts, or Scotland, doesn't make any sense. What plan does?

The real question is, how will China, India and Brazil - three growing, modernizing countries - handle their new found wealth?

This is the question being addressed, for example, in Simon Craig's "The Devouring Dragon:How China's Rise Threatens the Natural World".

Look at how much the western world is able to consume, at its comparatively modest population. Now imagine what China and India would be like. This is certainly a major problem. Particularly for the environment. CO2 emissions are bad enough as it is; but with China and India's continued rise, hundreds of millions of lower class people will be entering the middle class, buying cars, houses, and the other amenities westerners are accustomed to living with. How would the environment respond to 200,000 million more cars on the roads? Hundreds of millions of tons of coal - Chinas energy source of choice - being burned to power the millions of new houses? Or what about the fine woods that the Chinese have developed a taste for - such as the endangered Kwili wood of New Guinea, which, despite it's being interdicted by New Guinea law from being cut down, black market workers continue to cut it down, because the Chinese are willing to pay big bucks for it.

China is ravishing the forests of South East Asia, Central Africa and the Amazon. They retort: "were merely doing what the west has done" - ok, true! but that doesn't mean the environment can handle it - it doesn't mean there aren't real ecological consequences to bringing down more and more timber from our ancient forests. Besides the fact that it uproots essential plant life, and thus affecting the homeostatic conditions of the environment, trees also absorb CO2, meaning, when you cut down trees, you let loose ever more amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

While I don't subscribe to any Malthusian "population bomb" theories, we should nevertheless consider the effects of a growing and modernizing world on the wider environment. This is a difficult question to address, because, as we know, conservatives and liberals don't agree on what should be done about it. Logically, government intervention would help control population growth, but there is very good reason to feel iffy about government meddling in our private lives. So it's not an easy question to ask ourselves, and the solution probably won't please many people. Ultimately, however, what matters is to preserve the health of our environment - to not cut down so many trees, so that our children will have ancient forests; to not overburden our animal brethren, so that species like Tigers, panda bears and untold other species will still be around in generations to come.

I used to be skeptical about climate change and the affect of humans on the environment. But I've come to the position that it's safer to err on the side of caution, we don't have any incontrovertible evidence that rising CO2 levels adversely affects the environment, but would you be willing to continue doing what were doing, as some extremists on the right advocate? Besides CO2, there's the issue of deforestation, which needs to be reduced; as well as the contamination of our natural rivers, lakes and oceans; and for good measure, the illegal trade in rhino horn, tiger bones, and other exotic animals that are in demand by chinese natural medicine.

I read an article about this in the local paper.
Chinas population is actually falling because of their one child policy.
eventually all countries will have to employ population control.

Originally posted by WilsonWilson
I read an article about this in the local paper.
Chinas population is actually falling because of their one child policy.
eventually all countries will have to employ population control.

Well, more specifically it effects their working population. Their ability to work is going to decline radically, thus the china's economics are out the window.
I figure a change in policy would do us best, like.....Intelligent spacing, living, design, I think would work best.
We build farther, higher up into the sky, connected with other buildings, terraces, complete with greenhouses, solar panels and wind technologies, as well as flowing water for smaller hydro turbines.
Some buildings will be economy size for the lower class workers, others will be upgraded on middle, upper classes.
Smaller more efficient vehicles, all either electric or hybrid.
Increase vegetation and forestation in areas on and around the city.
Get rid of power lines and have obelisk's to transmit power thru narrow beam microwave technology along with smaller solar power grids in space to transmit power to cities below.
Everybody works and EARNS there place and food. You don't work, you don't earn squat and have no place or any food. What do we do with these people unwillingly to change? well I leave that up to you.
I would also have underwater cities too.
Some of these measures can help with population for some nations, but I can't speak for the rest of them. Off world colonization is our best bet too.

Oh the overpopulation myth strikes again does it?

There is enough of everything for far more than 10Billion people. it's simply a matter of doing things correctly.

We already throw out enough food to feed the entire world.



This is just one of the many examples how a lot of different kinds of foods can be produced cheaply and in large quantity.

~Tenth

Population is an issue, I don't care what anyone says, and it is highly frustrating (to me at least) when you have people in prominent 'truther' positions like Alex Jones saying how there is space for everyone.
Trouble is, they make it a black and white issue. You either support the genocide of billions or you support more of the same.

What people need to ask is, do people want to reduce the population so we can all live in developed world conditions, or do we want to reduce the living conditions of everyone so we can all be miserable.

Thing is, its a difficult subject. I know a lot of Western aid money goes on sterilising women in the third world, often without their prior knowledge which I'm also strongly against.

What should be important is education.

If we spent as much on funding rebel armies, subjugating Iraq and developing weapons as we did on the third world we could house feed and educate the people in the third world today, and then they wouldn't need to have eight children. We need to target religion into making the necessary changes to society. For Catholics to still be saying that contraception is wrong, is wrong.

Christ if we wrote off all debt and began anew, and paid the third world fairly for their resources we could be out of this situation within a few generations - we could then turn our attentions to something more worthwhile, like space exploration.

If something doesn't happen soon it won't matter anyway, mass extinction will begin to occur once we've #ed the planet beyond repair. We'll probably survive in isolated areas as a species, but I just hope if it does come to that they learn from our mistakes.

We will never eliminate poverty if the poorest nations grow the fastest, its like chasing a mirage. And since poverty breeds overpopulation due to high birthrates, and overpopulation breeds poverty, it is a vicious circle.