Population growth, world, projections

Given projected levels of population growth, world food production must more than triple in the next 50 years to adequately feed 9.6 billion people. A long-term solution may turn on increasing crop productivity on the arable land affected by aluminum toxicity, and citric acid may play an important role in achieving this goal. 

FIGURE 19.1 The T-shaped curve of past exponential world population growth, with projections... 

The current world population stands at 5.3 billion and is growing rapidly (1), Demographers project that the world population will reach 6.1 billion by the turn of the century, approach 8.2 billion by 2025, and probably reach 15 billion by 2100 (2), Never before in history have humans, by their sheer numbers, so dominated the earth and its resources. What is equally alarming is the 1.8% annual population growth rate --a rate 1800-times greater than that during the first million years of human existence. At this growth rate about one quarter million people are added to the world population every day. 

The primary feature of the projected population growth is the increase of the third world from 41/2 to 8 billion people in the next half century. History has shown that the key measure of population welfare and population stabilization is energy use. Today, people in the high birthrate, poverty stricken, low income nations use only a small fraction of the per-capita energy use of the rest of the world.2... 

As the world population grows, a shortage of food is anticipated. Since 1980, the world population has increased by 1.3 billion people, mostly in India and China. The estimated and projected populations of selected countries are presented in Table 10.18. Although there have been droughts, floods, tornadoes, and wars, there is still an increase in the world population, with a projected growth of 1.4% for the 1990-2000 decade. It is estimated that from 1986 to 2000 there will be an increase of 319 million people worldwide. In undeveloped nations, it was formerly necessary to have five children to make sure that one reached adulthood. China, India, and some Southeast Asia countries have made... 

Fig. 4. The history of the major sources of world CO2 emissions from 1860 to 1993 (Houghton, 2002 Marland et al, 2002 Stern and Kaufman, 1998). From the largest to the smallest they are fossil fuel use biomass, which includes deforestation methane, which converts to CO2 in the atmosphere and cement production. Fossil fuel emissions are projected into the future based on proved reserves shown in Fig. 1. Other curves are projected based on projected population growth.

The United Nations projects that the number of people living in absolute poverty will increase from 1.2 X 10 today to 1.5 x 10 by 2025. Today more than 700 million people in the developing countries do not have access to sufficient food to lead healthy, productive lives. If current trends in population growth and food production continue, by the year 2025, the World Bank estimates that Africa alone will have an annual food shortage of 250 million tonnes. 

Figure 1.2. Historical development of global use of primary energy (in Gtoe) including projected trends to 2100. Insert shows the projected population growth for same period (courtesy of World Energy Council, London, England).

The projection for massive energy demand growth in cities of the developing world can be understood as the product of population growth, rural-to-urban demographic migrations, and economic development. 

Population growth in industrialized countries has essentially stopped and world population growth has shifted almost entirely to the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Currently, of the 83 million people added to global population each year by the difference between births and deaths, only 1 million are in the industrialized countries. The developing world s population is projected to increase by 2.9 billion by 2050, compared with only 49 million in the more developed countries [19],... 

Of all the issues humankind faces nowadays, the most significant are population growth, food availability, and energy. These three interlinked issues are closely related to cereals. Ninety-eight percent of the population growth experienced today is in the developing world. During the past century, the number of inhabitants almost quadrupled to 6.2 billion people, and the population projected to year 2050 is at least... 

The recent gains in world population and the pressure they place on natural resources is having an impact on the economics of weed control currently and will have far reaching impact on it in the future. Since the early 1940 s the world s population doubled -from less than 2.3 billion to over 4.6 billion in 1983. The annual rate of growth is about 1.7 percent and recent projections indicate the global population will increase to slightly over 6 billion by 2000. 

Source (1) The World Food Problem, the President s Science Advisory Committee, Volume II, May, 1967. (2) Projections beyond 1985 based on United Nations Medium projections as shown in The Future Growth of World Population (UN Publication Sales, No. 58 XIII 2). 

China s population of 1.3 billion (compared to 300 milhon in the United States) makes up more than 20% of the world s population. Current gross domestic product (GDP) is US 1.4 trillion and is projected to grow to US 43 trillion by 2050 at an annual rate of 8 to 10%. With 6% of that GDP expected to be spent on health care, China s pharmaceutical market is expected to be the only one that continues double-digit growth into 2010 ... 

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