The rapid development of medical technology in recent decades allows humanity to increase life expectancy on average and produce more healthy children. According to the latest statistics provided by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the world's population will continue to grow rapidly and will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Moreover, by 2030 the population, according to the latest data, could reach 8.5 billion people.
The report says that the birth rate on the planet as a whole is declining in each of its separate regions, but at the same time there is still an increase in life expectancy, which generally increases the average age of the inhabitants of the Earth.
In general, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that many of the resources on which our survival on this planet depends are not renewable. Therefore, it is quite obvious why there is a heated debate among scientists about why it is so important to maintain a certain balance of their fair distribution and moderate use, if we are even slightly concerned about the problem of such a rapid population growth.
In 2013, one of the world's most famous naturalists and researchers, as well as TV and radio presenter David Attenborough, spoke very sharply in the British weekly Radio Times that people began to resemble a real plague, while adding that “either we ourselves will begin to limit the population the population of the planet, or nature will do it for us soon”. The scientist also noted that one of the key factors that will allow nature to translate this into reality is global climate change, the first signs of which we can already observe. And ironically, to a large extent, we ourselves are to blame for this very climate change, people who carelessly ignore all hints.
Many other prominent experts in various fields of science also share Attenborough's point of view. One of them, for example, is theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who gives humanity only 100 years to survive.
If the situation in the world, according to Attenborough and Hawking, does not change, then the growth of the Earth's population, coupled with the ignorance of the search for solutions to change the situation, including in matters of climate, may become a sure recipe for a global disaster.
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NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK