Martin Wolf Is it possible for the vast mass of humanity to enjoy the living standards of today’s high-income countries? This is, arguably, the biggest question confronting humanity in the 21st century.

Min första artikel i en stor tidning
Vad gör vi åt befolkningsexplosionen?
Rolf Englund Svenska Dagbladet, Fritt Forum (dåtidens Brännpunkt) 4/8 1967

Under 2011 når världens befolkning sju miljarder, och befolkningskurvan stiger brant.
Kan vårt klot livnära oss alla? Och vart är befolkningstillväxten på väg?
Se videon hos National Geographic – om du vågar!

The 9 billion-people question
The world’s population will grow from almost 7 billion now to over 9 billion in 2050
A special report on feeding the world
The Economist print Feb 24th 2011

Is it possible for the vast mass of humanity to enjoy the living standards of today’s high-income countries?
This is, arguably, the biggest question confronting humanity in the 21st century.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times June 10 2008

Is it possible for the vast mass of humanity to enjoy the living standards of today’s high-income countries? This is, arguably, the biggest question confronting humanity in the 21st century. It is today’s version of the doubts expressed by Thomas Malthus, two centuries ago, about the possibility of enduring rises in living standards. On the answer depends the destiny of our progeny. It will determine whether this will be a world of hope rather than despair and of peace rather than conflict.

This – not the effectiveness of its particular prescriptions – is the biggest question raised by the report of the growth commission discussed here last week. It is also the focus of a powerful new book by Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute*.

Professor Sachs is an optimistic prophet of doom. He falls in between those environmentalists who see no solution and those free-marketeers who see no problem.

By inclination, I am far closer to the latter than the former. But it has become evident, at least to me, that the human impact on the planet on which we depend has risen to enormous proportions. We have treated the global commons as if they were free. Self-evidently, they are not.

The "peak oil" theory – that oil production has reached its maximum and will soon begin its decline, bringing potentially catastrophic consequences to the modern world – no longer just comes from internet crackpots and conspiracy theorists;
now geologists, market analysts and oil prospectors believe that this scenario is becoming reality.
Michael Savage The Independent 12 June 2008