If you had to give every single person on the planet a handshake — assuming each handshake takes you about a second — it would take you about 240 years to get through everyone.
That’s well over three lifetimes of shaking hands, from the second you’re born to the day you die. Our world has a lot of people. More than the human mind could ever hope to comprehend.
Except, while we underestimate our population, we have a knack for overestimating just how much Earth can do for us. And that mistake could cost us big-time.
Throughout virtually all of human history, there wasn’t a lot of us. Nature came and went in the form of bears and tigers and ice ages, taking millions of lives with it. And yet, after just a few decades of growth and consumption, we’ve warmed the planet by 1.5°C, deforested 1/3 of our forests since the ice age, and bleached the majority of our oceans with carbon dioxide.
Now, the tables have turned and nature is at our mercy. What we have on our hands isn’t just too many people. It’s the source of all of humanity’s modern problems and potentially what ends us entirely — overpopulation.
Too Many, Too Little
As this article goes on air, the world has about 7.674 billion people living on it. Eighty years from now, at the end of the 21st century, we’ll have about 10.9 billion. By then, we’ll be in a global catastrophe. Almost every vital resource we have today — things like food, water, or space — won’t accommodate fast enough to keep up with that growth.
Overpopulation starts when too many people begin to share supplies from the same, limited source. Their consumption grows beyond the source’s capacity until it eventually fades away:
Kama wewe alikuwa na kutoa kila mtu mmoja juu ya sayari ya mkono - kudhani kila mkono inachukua wewe kuhusu sekunde - ingekuwa kuchukua wewe kuhusu miaka 240 kupata kupitia kila mtu. Hiyo ni zaidi ya maisha matatu ya kushikana mikono, kutoka wakati wa pili unazaliwa hadi siku unapofa. Ulimwengu wetu una watu wengi. Zaidi ya akili ya kibinadamu inaweza kamwe kutarajia kuelewa. Isipokuwa, wakati sisi underestimate idadi yetu ya watu, tuna ustadi wa overestimating tu jinsi mengi Dunia inaweza kufanya kwa ajili yetu. Na kosa hilo linaweza kutugharimu pesa nyingi. Katika historia yote ya wanadamu, hakukuwa na watu wengi kama sisi. Asili ilikuja na kwenda katika namna ya dubu na simbamarara na enzi za barafu, ikichukua mamilioni ya maisha pamoja nayo. "Lakini baada ya miongo michache tu ya ukuaji na matumizi, tumepiga joto sayari kwa 1.5 ° C, tumeondoa msitu wa moja kwa tatu wa misitu yetu tangu enzi ya barafu, na tumepunguza bahari zetu nyingi na kaboni dioksidi. """ Sasa, mambo yamebadilika na asili iko katika rehema yetu. Kile tunacho katika mikono yetu si watu wengi sana. Ni chanzo cha matatizo yote ya kisasa ya ubinadamu na uwezekano wa nini mwisho sisi kabisa <unk> overpopulation. "Kama ilivyoelezwa katika makala hii, ""Watu milioni 7.674 wanaishi duniani.""" Katika miaka 80 ijayo, mwishoni mwa karne ya 21, tutakuwa na watu bilioni 10.9. Kufikia wakati huo, tutakuwa katika msiba wa ulimwenguni pote. Karibu kila rasilimali muhimu tuliyo nayo leo - vitu kama chakula, maji, au nafasi - haviwezi kukidhi kasi ya kutosha ili kukabiliana na ukuaji huo. Idadi kubwa ya watu huanza wakati watu wengi sana wanapoanza kushiriki vifaa kutoka kwa chanzo kimoja, chenye mipaka. Matumizi yao hukua zaidi ya uwezo wa chanzo mpaka hatimaye hufifia: