If you thought the current financial crisis was bad news, things are looking even worse for 2030, says an article in the Guardian today:
A “perfect storm” of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration as people flee from the worst-affected regions, the UK government’s chief scientist will warn tomorrow.
The basic problem is one that politicians can’t tackle because it is not politically correct – there are too many people on the Earth, and the number is expanding rapidly – today nearly 7 billion, by 2025, a billion more.
Every person consumes food, water and other resources, and we need to set goals to sink the absolute consumption of these resources, which means massive increases in efficiency and a move to consuming far less per capita. The most promising way to do this would be to limit population growth as the Chinese did in the last century, but to propose that would be to commit political suicide in most countries today.
