The Global Climate-Population Crisis
The world’s current population is estimated at 7.3 billion persons. Shockingly, demographers now predict that - contrary to previous projections - global population will not stabilize, and that by 2050 Earth may be home to an estimated 9.7 billion people (FAO, 2016) and upwards to 12.3 billion people by 2100 (Gerland et al., 2014). Current and continued global population growth is due to growth in Asia and Africa. Dona Meadows (n.a.) captured this growth in short by stating that if the world were a village of 1,000 people, there would be: 584 Asians, 124 Africans, 95 Europeans, 84 Latin Americans, 55 residents of the former USSR and its satellites, 52 North Americans, and 6 Australians/New Zealanders. Global population has over time become more concentrated in cities. The world’s population was estimated to be 3% urban in 1800, by 2007 it had become 50% urban (United Nations, 2008). About 44% of the world’s population lives in cities within 150 km of the ocean. China’s coastal urban population is estimated to exceed 400 million people (United Nations Atlas of the Oceans, 2000).
