Elon Musk on Friday reiterated a population theory he has also promoted previously: that instead of heading toward an unsustainable population by 2050, we will meet a population collapse.
Tesla CEO refuted the warnings of overpopulation while responding to a tweet by World of Engineering which said the population of the planet will be 9,346,399,468 by mid-century.
The tweet read: “1950 (historical) world population – 2,556,000,053
“Current world population – 7,712,343,478
“2050 (projected) world population – 9,346,399,468.”
Replying to the post, the billionaire PayPal co-founder wrote: “Real issue will [be] an aging & declining world population by 2050, *not* overpopulation.”
Real issue will an aging & declining world population by 2050, *not* overpopulation. Randers estimate far more accurate than UN imo: https://t.co/cdHf62bxpb
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2019
“[Jørgen] Randers estimate far more accurate than UN imo,” he added, citing a Wikipedia article containing a number of population projections, including the one proposed by Randers.
Replying to a Twitter user, Musk agreed that the population is going to be an “inverse pyramid.”
“Yes, demographics, stratified by age, will look like an upside down pyramid with many old people & fewer young,” the SpaceX founder wrote.
The Wikipedia article Musk cited in his tweet contains a number of population projections by 2050.
Yes, demographics, stratified by age, will look like an upside down pyramid with many old people & fewer young
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2019
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Referring to the projection proposed by Randers in 2012, the article reads: “Jørgen Randers, one of the authors of the seminal 1972 long-term simulations in The Limits to Growth, offered an alternative scenario in a 2012 book, arguing that traditional projections insufficiently take into account the downward impact of global urbanization on fertility.
Randers’ ‘most likely scenario’ predicts a peak in the world population in the early 2040’s at about 8.1 billion people, followed by decline.
“These projected growth patterns depend on assumptions about vital rates.
“Total fertility is assumed to continue to decline, at varying paces depending on circumstances in individual countries, to a below-replacement level of 1.85 children per woman by mid century.”
According to the report, Randers concluded that the population will first decline when it will drop below replacement level in a number of countries.
However, the fertility levels will increase again back to the replacement level, eventually stabilizing the population of the world.
Randers’ model predicts that all countries will reach replacement level by 2175.
The report also notes how the UN’s population projections varied over time. As of now, the leading population theories predict that the population will keep increasing in the next century, and will not peak in the 21st century, as emphasized by the theories of the early 2000’s.
“Estimates published in the 2000’s tended to predict that the population of Earth will stop increasing around 2070; In a 2004 long-term prospective report, the United Nations Population Division projected the world population to peak at 9.22 billion in 2075,” the report reads.
“After reaching this maximum, it would decline slightly and then resume a slow increase, reaching a level of 8.97 billion by 2300, about the same as the projected 2050 figure.”
It adds: “This prediction was revised in the 2010’s, to the effect that no maximum will likely be reached in the 21st century. The main reason for the revision was that the ongoing rapid population growth in Africa had been underestimated.
“A 2014 paper by demographers from several universities and the United Nations Population Division forecast that the world’s population will reach about 10.9 billion in 2100 and continue growing thereafter.
“The UN as of 2017 predicts a decline of global population growth rate from +1.0% in 2020 to +0.5% in 2050 and to +0.1% in 2100.”
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