After two centuries of skyrocket growth , a pregnant dip in world ’s population is “ inevitable ” , according to a new paper compose by a lead population ecologist .
William E Rees , Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia , is the generator of over 150 compeer - brush up papers on growth and socioeconomic development . Through the course of action of his tenner of oeuvre , he ’s even credit with mint the idiom " ecological footprint " .
In a young study , he returns with a fresh warning that our unsustainable wasting disease of resources and exponential population growth has “ propelled forward-looking techno - industrial society into a state of advance overshoot ” . As such , he believes that it ’s “ inevitable ” the world will sustain a global economical downturn and shrinkage of population this century .
It all comes down to the finite resources we unrelentingly consume as a modern techno - industrial society in a tender to create continuous economical emergence .
Rees argue that all beast species – Homo sapiensincluded – are naturally predispose to grow and reproduce until their habitat reaches breaking point . Eventually , any beast will reach a point where its bountiful numbers ensue in excess consumption and habitat degradation , leading to food shortages , disease , or depredation . This disconfirming feedback hits the population , making it fall back below the prospicient - full term carrying capacity of the habitat . Eventually , the resources will fill again and the home ground will repair , get down the cycle again .
Humans have regain themselves in an especially foxy place , though . When humanity wangle to harness the power of fossil fuels , in particular since the nineteenth hundred , it set off a period of unprecedented food and resource copiousness . A globular universe boom followed . In the past 200 years , the population increased from 1 billion to8 billion .
Now , the supply of those fossil fuels is jump to take to the woods dry and wo n’t be able to replenish any meter before long . at the same time , the prolific function of fossil fuel hasaltered the satellite beyond stamping ground .
“ The abundance generate by fossil fuel enabledH. sapiens , for the first time , to feel a one - off global universe boom−bust Hz . It is a ‘ one - off ’ cycle because it was enable by huge descent of both potentially renewable self - producing resource and finite non - renewable resource , including fossil fuels , which have been greatly depleted . No repetition is possible , ” Rees write .
“ By choosing to industrialize , Homo sapiensunwittingly made a consignment to impermanency . We take on a ego - terminating way of life , in which the finite resources that enable our industrial universe would unavoidably become insufficient to do so , ” he added .
A bunch of other studies have foreseen a global population will pass up in the next century . In 2020 , a immense subject area published in The Lancetsuggested that the global populationwill mature over the next few decades and visor in 2064 at around 9.7 billion mass , before decrease to 8.8 billion by 2100 . Others have been more uttermost , suggesting that the mankind ’s universe could slump as low as6 billionpeople by the final stage of the C .
Rees consider the resourcefulness overshoot and resulting " universe chastisement " could get mussy . provide unchecked , the trouble has the potential to convey mystery for billions of masses in the frame of “ deoxidize goods production , massive unemployment , broken supplying chemical chain , failing GDP , declining personal incomes , over - sweep over social help . ” In the regretful - font scenario , a full societal collapse could occur . Either way , a decline in universe is potential to follow .
“ It is uncertain whether much or any of industrial high-pitched - tech can persist in the absence of abundant flash energy and rich imagination stockpile , most of which will have been extracted , used , and dissipated . It may well be that the skilful - case hereafter will , in fact , be powered by renewable energy , but in the form of human heftiness , swig knight , mules , and oxen supplemented by mechanical water wheels and aerogenerator , ” he added .
“ In the worst casing , the billion or so subsister will front a coming back to Stone - Age lifestyles . Should this be humanity ’s future , it will not be urban sophisticates that survive but rather the pre - adapted rural poor and remaining sac of Indigenous peoples , ” Rees continued .
So , what can we do about this gloomy fate confront us ? Reeshad previouslyargued that we could quash savorless - out disaster by melt off our ecologic footmark and ending dream of perpetual material growth . In his tardy theme , however , he does n’t sound so optimistic .
" One might gestate that an intelligent social species would forge cultural overrides to rein in potentially dangerous expansionist inclination on a finite satellite . Rather remarkably , the inverse is the case , " Rees writes .
" In the respectable of all potential worlds , the whole transition might actually be superintend in ways that prevent unneeded suffering of millions ( one million million ? ) of people , but this is not happening – and can not go on – in a world blind to its own quandary , " he writes .
The cogitation is publish in the journalWorld .
