Population growth puts tremendous pressure on economic and ecological resources. In the long term, the world will have to come to terms with the fact that we are consuming at a faster rate than nature is able to produce right now. The consequences of not making an adjustment in an orderly manner will not be a pretty sight.
According Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us , we would have would first have to limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to have only one child.
Using the United Nations' medium scenario for life expectancy through 2050 as a benchmark, Dr. Sergei Scherbov, who is the research group leader at the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and an analyst for the World Population Program, calculated what would happen to human population if, from now on, all fertile women have only one child (in 2004, the rate was 2.6 births per female; in the medium scenario that would lower to about two children by 2050).
If this somehow began tomorrow, our current 6.5 billion human population would drop by 1 billion by the middle of this century. (If we continue as projected, it will reach 9 billion.)
If this somehow began tomorrow, our current 6.5 billion human population would drop by 1 billion by the middle of this century. (If we continue as projected, it will reach 9 billion.)
At that point, keeping to one-child-per-human-mother, life on Earth for all species would change spectacularly. Because of natural attrition, today's bloated human population bubble would not be re-inflated at anything near the former pace. By 2075, we would have reduced our presence by almost by half, down to 3.43 billion, and our impact by much more, because so much of what we do is magnified by chain reactions we set off through the ecosystem. By 2100, less than a century from now, we would be at 1.6 billion: back to levels last seen in the 19th century, just before quantum advances in energy, medicine, and food production doubled our numbers and then doubled us again. at the time, those discoveries seemed like miracles. Today, like too much of any good thing, we indulge in more only at our peril. At such far-more-manageable numbers, however, we would have the benefit of all our progress plus the wisdom to keep our presence under control.
Fewer births, would lower infant mortality, because resources would be devoted to protecting each precious member of the latest generation. Children will be more respected and better cared for as there are fewer of them. The dreadful numbers of children dying today could be reduced to an ugly page in the history books.
With realty prices soaring due to every increase in population, housing has become a distant dream for many. Houses will become plentiful without building more buildings. A sustainable civilization will be possible when we stop taking more than is being regenerated by Nature.
Naturally, Nature stands to profit even more in the long run by a phase-out of the human race. As fewer people inhabit an area, less damage is done to wildlife’s habitat. Restoration will be possible when cities shrink and green spaces are expanded. Eventually, extinctions will become less common as habitat is restored and preserved for wildlife.
