Scientists warn that Earth could be "unrecognizable" by 2050
Combined effect of surging population and depleting resources could cause an ecological catastrophe within 40 years
By Peter Finocchiaro
Salon.com
For all the talk of economic stagnation in the U.S., you could pick a worse time to live in parts of the developing world. Average worldwide income is expected triple over the next 40 years. And in developing nations that figure could jump 500 percent. The global infant mortality rate has more than halved over the past 40 years, according to the World Bank. Technological advances and economic liberalization have opened a whole new world of opportunity for billions who only decades ago would have been abandoned to extreme poverty. Then Thomas Malthus rears his ugly head, and his warnings of the dangers of population growth are like a post-historic Hydra.
As the global population surpasses 7 billion this year -- experts expect that figure will surge to 9 billion by 2050 -- and standard of living rises, natural resources continue diminish. All of this conspires to put additional pressures on a global ecosystem already buckling under the weight of human consumption. According to scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the confluence of precipitous demographic and environmental factors amount to a massive ecological bubble; one that, should it burst, could lead to catastrophe.
According to the World Wildlife Fund's Jason Clay:
By Peter Finocchiaro
Salon.com
For all the talk of economic stagnation in the U.S., you could pick a worse time to live in parts of the developing world. Average worldwide income is expected triple over the next 40 years. And in developing nations that figure could jump 500 percent. The global infant mortality rate has more than halved over the past 40 years, according to the World Bank. Technological advances and economic liberalization have opened a whole new world of opportunity for billions who only decades ago would have been abandoned to extreme poverty. Then Thomas Malthus rears his ugly head, and his warnings of the dangers of population growth are like a post-historic Hydra.
As the global population surpasses 7 billion this year -- experts expect that figure will surge to 9 billion by 2050 -- and standard of living rises, natural resources continue diminish. All of this conspires to put additional pressures on a global ecosystem already buckling under the weight of human consumption. According to scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the confluence of precipitous demographic and environmental factors amount to a massive ecological bubble; one that, should it burst, could lead to catastrophe.
According to the World Wildlife Fund's Jason Clay:
[To feed everyone] we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000. By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable.(Original here.)
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2 Comments:
I will bet anyone of the Vox Verax editors $1000 dollars if they predict exactly what is going to happen to our climate here in Minnesota in 2020?
How much snow will get? How much rain? How many tornadoes? What will the average Minnesota temperature be? Will we have winter? How many lakes will completely dry up?
I will even sign this bet in front of a Notary Public legally binding me to pay any Vox Verax editor $1000 if they can answer the questions I pose.
If you agree to the bet and in 2020, none of the answers you provide in 2011 come to pass, then you owe me $1000.
As long as Vox Verax continues to publish bogus predictions about the future relting to climate change or global warming, I will ask them to put their money where their mouths are.
We are quoting climatologists and scientists; you are repeating Fox News slogans. Stop pretending to be an expert.
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