The United Nations’ population experts recently rocked the world by projecting the planet will be home to a larger-than-expected 10.1 billion people by 2100.
To some, the august body used statistical “magic” to arrive at this number. To others, the 10.1 billion figure is too low – a calamitous 15 billion people, they argue, is closer to the truth.
Welcome to the delicately calibrated and yet fractious world of long-term demography – where people draw fears of environmental and immigration catastrophes caused by too many babies or economic and cultural collapses caused by too few.