Four compelling reasons to fear population growth

Four population-driven threats to space

If from abstract principles and paradigms of my previous article (Malthus, forever?), we turn to the real, contemporary world, we may say that the rapidly expanding world population also has other consequences – beyond the reduction of “pristine” space – that may adversely affect the quality of the environment (space, in our paradigm) and bring about critical situations. Four of these consequences are strictly linked to sensitive environmental questions that will become critical as we proceed towards the end of the century, when world population growth, according to a rather optimistic consensus, is forecast to be close to zero. In the coming eight decades, the world is set to host an additional 3.4 billion people, a number equal to the increase accumulated in the preceding half a century.^[1]

These four consequences are:

(i) human intrusion into the great forests, and particularly the rainforests, whose integrity is a guarantee of the bio-natural equilibrium;

(ii) the intensification of human settlement in the most precarious habitats, in particular along coasts and on the shores of rivers and lakes;

(iii) the explosion of urbanization processes and

(iv) last but not least, global warming.

Each one of these four processes may be described as a population-driven threat to the environment, affecting the quality of space available to humankind.

Read more details about the 4 consequences here.