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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the Betteridge-says-maybe dept.

By 2050 there will be 9 billion carbon-burning, plastic-polluting, calorie-consuming people on the planet. By 2100, that number will balloon to 11 billion, pushing society into a Soylent Green scenario. Such dire population predictions aren't the stuff of sci-fi; those numbers come from one of the most trusted world authorities, the United Nations.

But what if they're wrong? Not like, off by a rounding error, but like totally, completely goofed?

That's the conclusion Canadian journalist John Ibbitson and political scientist Darrel Bricker come to in their newest book, Empty Planet, due out February 5th. After painstakingly breaking down the numbers for themselves, the pair arrived at a drastically different prediction for the future of the human species. "In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline," they write. "Once that decline begins, it will never end."

The World Might Actually Run Out of People (archive)

Empty Planet

Who do you think is right ? The United Nations or Darrel Bricker/John Ibbitson ?


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:57AM (4 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:57AM (#796394) Journal

    ...as soon as I see "in their new book", I understand that for almost every case, at least part of the motivation of the provision of whatever information is in the offing is to make money. It's an excellent first-order assumption.

    When it comes specifically to predicting future population sizes, I'm pretty sure that...

    • No one can estimate the impact technology will have
    • No one can estimate the impact society will have
    • No one can estimate the impact that medicine will have
    • No one can estimate these numbers at all

    --
    My freind said he didn't understand cloning.
    I said "That makes two of us."

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:35AM (#796419)

    ^ winner

    The trend of today does not necessarily make the trend of tomorrow. Many humans realize the world is too packed with humans, birthing more humans foremost becomes a cost decision, and sometimes it is an environmental decision if they are aware of over population.

    If population declines it is likely that people will start having more kids again.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:44AM (#796428)

      If populations decline we will just ban birth control. And once we ban birth control only criminals will be childless.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:43AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:43AM (#796426) Journal

    Anyone can estimate these numbers. It's just that the estimates usually aren't of much value.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:58PM (#796680)

    I'm pretty sure we won't have a decline without some major societal restructuring.
    The rich want indefinite economic growth, an indefinite increasing population supports that, a shrinking population does not hence this will not happen easily.
    When it starts to become a problem you can expect a lot of programs to encourage breeding. (Extra tax cuts, family driving lanes i.s.o. carpool lanes, .....)