Overpopulation has been a contentious issue since at least the 1950s. Now, a peak, crash, and burn scenario is the prediction from just about everyone.
The Earth isn’t supporting the current 8 billion. Poverty, the defining symptom of social failure, is endemic. That’s mainly due to antiquated economic models and chronic irresponsibility. 10 billion will be a massive overload. Quality of life, serenaded by antiquarians and ignored by economists, will be dubious at best.
You don’t have to look far to find precedents. In 1000 BC, there were supposedly 110 million people worldwide. In the last 100 years, the population has gone from 2 billion to 8 billion. That worked out well, didn’t it? This was “growth” in its most primitive form. It was truly mindless. It’s a disaster that has created itself. Overpopulation has already created a world that doesn’t work. the global slum doesn’t, either.
These numbers also dovetail with a rapidly declining fertility rate. The demographic models all point to a combination of existing factors that will drastically reduce the population.
It’s hard to see where and how a population crash would bottom out. Vast urban development areas would be useless liabilities, horrendously contaminated, and unsafe. You could have far more buildings than people.
Extinction? Probably not. Big population falls usually reduce survival pressure. The Black Death was so effective that it created the European middle class, from serfdom to affluence. No irony there…
Technology could be a buffer, or at least look like one, but on this scale, you’d still have to play catchup. Such a big existential decrease in socioeconomic dynamics will hit hard. A population of 100 million can’t and won’t work the same way as a population of 300 million. There’s also the slight question of if and how people can physically survive in this unholy mess.
Any global environment based on self-inflicted disasters can’t be a good environment. That’s particularly true when the macro environment is already under severe stress.
You can also predict that in that six-decade timeframe additional “compound” issues may well emerge. The net effects of pollution, declining food quality, emerging diseases, and basic global mismanagement could be underestimated. This mismanagement is about as common as malaria.
It would be equally easy to say that human stupidity has also never been so noisy and proud of itself. The Shining Cadres of Proven Ignoramuses have achieved nothing but disaster after disaster for decades. Whatever the decision, it will be wrong. Whatever the problem, they’ll refuse to solve it. “Let’s have a few utterly pointless wars while we’re at it, just in case someone does something useful and we can’t stop them.” Is a good example.
However obvious the constant train wrecks, nobody gets off the train. …But at least now you have a timetable.
__________________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
