Over the past 54 years, the earth’s population has more than doubled, and according to a recent UN report, the next 12 years promise a new wave of growth.
By 2050, the UN forecasts that there will be 9.6 billion people on the planet, leading to a rapid depletion of Earth’s capacities, from energy sources to freshwater reserves. Yet the birthrate has begun falling over the past decade, not just in developed western countries, but in developing Asian countries as well. This has led not a few skeptics to believe that the population could even shrink in the future. So what is overpopulation: a myth or a reality that threatens us?
