Massive conflict and widespread disease would not curb rapidly growing society, study claims

Another World War would not significantly dent the global population (stock image shown). That’s according to a study by the University of Adelaide, Australia. Researchers say that the population has spiralled upwards. It is now more than likely to exceed 10 billion by 2100
Professor
Barry Brook, who co-led the study at the University of Adelaide, Australia, said: ‘We were surprised that a five-year World War Three scenario, mimicking the same proportion of people killed in the first and second world wars combined, barely registered a blip on the human population trajectory this century.’
- Another world war would not significantly dent the global population
- That’s according to a study by the University of Adelaide, Australia
- Researchers say that the population has spiralled upwards
- It is now more than likely to exceed 10 billion by 2100
- And even a global pandemic or conflict that killed six billion people today would still see the population reach more than five billion in 2100
- Experts say we need to cut resource consumption to control the population
- ‘Roughly 14 per cent of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today. That’s a sobering statistic,’ said study’s Professor Bradshaw
By Jonathan O’Callaghan for MailOnline
Published: 15:01 EST, 27 October 2014 | Updated: 15:01 EST, 27 October 2014
Rather than reducing the number of people on the planet, cutting the consumption of natural resources and enhanced recycling would have a better chance of achieving effective sustainability gains in the next 85 years, they said.
DID THE POPULATION EXPLOSION BEGIN 2,000 YEARS AGO?
There are about seven billion people living on our planet and this number is set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, according to UN figures.
This population explosion is largely attributed to better healthcare and farming practices, with some experts arguing that industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries was the tipping point that allowed more humans to thrive.
However, one social scientist claims the human population explosion has its roots as far back as 2,000 years ago.
Aaron Stutz, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory’s Oxford College in Georgia created a new model of demographic and archaeological data to show when humans thrived.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, he claims that political and economic reforms helped to create more stable families, and therefore enabled more people to thrive.
World War Two claimed between 50 million and 85 million military and civilian lives, according to different estimates, making it the most lethal conflict by absolute numbers of dead in human history.
Meanwhile, more than 37 million people are thought to have died in World War One.
The scientists used a computer model based on demographic data from the World Health Organisation and United States Census Bureau to investigate different population reduction scenarios.
They found that under current conditions of fertility, mortality and mother’s average age at first childbirth, global population was likely to grow from seven billion in 2013 to 10.4 billion by 2100.
Climate change, war, reduced mortality and fertility, and increased maternal age altered this prediction only slightly.
A devastating global pandemic today that killed two billion people was only projected to reduce population size to 8.4 billion, while six billion deaths brought it down to 5.1 billion.
The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy Of Sciences.
Co-author
Professor Corey Bradshaw, also from the University of Adelaide, said: ‘Global population has risen so fast over the past century that roughly 14 per cent of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today. That’s a sobering statistic.
There are about seven billion people living on our planet and this number is set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, according to UN figures.
This population explosion is largely attributed to better healthcare and farming practices, with some experts arguing that industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries was the tipping point that allowed more humans to thrive.
However, one social scientist claims the human population explosion has its roots as far back as 2,000 years ago.
Aaron Stutz, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory’s Oxford College in Georgia created a new model of demographic and archaeological data to show when humans thrived.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, he claims that political and economic reforms helped to create more stable families, and therefore enabled more people to thrive.
…(Read more )
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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