Doomism alive and well: Humans Face Major Population ‘Correction’ This Century, Scientist Warns (msn.com)
Rees concludes with a rather gloomy prediction, viewing widespread societal collapse as inevitable.
This story comes from creative news service Newsweek, so you know it’s going to be off the wall.
Reminder – a fertility rate below 2.1 indicates shrinking populations. The rate has been below replacement level since 1972/1973 and is reported to now be 1.6. The reason the U.S. population increases is because of immigration.
And global fertility rates:
Global combined fertility rates are near 2.3 and in countries like India, will soon drop below 2.1. Mega growth remains in countries such as Nigeria, and a few others which will propel global population upwards for a few decades. But the reasons fertility rates have fallen will likely take hold in these other countries soon.
See the books Empty Planet, and SuperAbundance to learn more about this, or view some of the works produced by Peter Zeihan. The authors of Empty Planet (one of whom is a former demographer for the Canadian government) think peak population may be reached much sooner than the UN predicts – perhaps even in the 2040s. See their book to learn their reasoning.
