The world’s population just passed the 7 Billion mark! That’s a lot of people out there on this rock called earth which is already being strained to its limit when it comes to resources. The world population however is expected to begin stabilizing around 2050 with the 9 Billion mark being reached around then.
This might seem like an awful lot of people and believe me when I say I agree that it definitely is. It will place an alarming amount of pressure on our resources from a point of view which accounts for food, space and energy.
And this population will all want to march fervently towards living in a developed world where resources are plenty and goods cheap and easily available for consumption, this is due to the fact that this was the current model of the world economy which has been successful thus far.
I ask a different question though, till date the capitalist economic model has worked on one simple fundamental fact, increase in demand leads to an increase in production which leads to higher growth, this increase in demand was almost always present due to the fact that there were just more people present in the world every single day so more resources were bound to be consumed but what about after the population has risen to its maximum? Where does the extra demand and feverish growth come from then? I will even agree to the point that just because the population has stopped growing it doesn’t mean that the developing nations would have stalled in their march towards a developed world and that will continue to push demand for say another 15 years till they are reasonably on their way. I say 15 years because this constantly connected small world has become faster in changing than ever before and I don’t think that aspect is ever going to change.
Coming back to the point I think we need to think up never more sustainable economic models for the future other wise we will be left printing useless bills just to artificially placate ourselves that more is indeed being sold etc, through the guise of increased revenue and that “growth” still continues. Such a model will collapse at some point under its own weight and the recession and mayhem it will cause then will be worse than anything before.
I don’t have a solution for the problem but I guess the first step is acknowledging the scenario and then developing a model for it.
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- World Population Touches Seven Billionth Today (socyberty.com)
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