How Long Can the World Sustain the World's Population?
As of 2007, the human race is using more of the world’s natural resources than what the world can renew.
Scientists have estimated that humanity’s ecological footprint, or the estimated amount of the world’s natural resources that the entire human race is using, has exceeded the world’s renewable resources by about 25%.
This fact alone is staggering. This means that the planet can not sustain the world’s current population indefinitely. As of 2006, the world population was estimated to be about 6.5 billion people. Therefore, the world can only perpetually sustain an estimated 5.3 billion people on renewable resources. This does not take into account for non-renewable resources, such as coal and oil, that are dwindling at an ever increasing rate too.
This reason alone is why the world needs a limit on the global human population. Or rather, humanity needs to control and limit the global population at an environmentally sustainable level to prevent future mass starvations, economic collapses, killings, and wars over insufficient natural resources.
Also take into account that by the year 2050, there will be an estimated 9.4 billion people in the world. Keep in mind, that at humanity’s current technological level, the world can only indefinitely sustain 5.3 billion people.
This leads to the question of:
How long can the world sustain the world’s population?
After considerable search, I could not even find an estimate when shortages of resources would start causing economic collapses, wars, or starvations. Whenever this time may be, it is inevitable without limiting the world’s population or huge advancements in technology that can not be guaranteed thus can not be counted on.
Right now, there is no global organization capable of enforcing global population limits; but if each government can limit their population to what their country can indefinitely sustain, then humanity would guarantee a much brighter future for generations to come.
by Phil for Humanity
on 04/11/2007