7 billion: The crowded planet

The world’s population is expected to hit 7 billion in October – growing to seven times the estimated one billion population of the early 1800s.   As part of the University of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas, some of Europe’s leading minds will come together to discuss whether our ever-expanding population is sustainable.

The population has exploded by an extra one billion in a little over a decade (since 1999).  How many people are too many? Can the planet sustain such a population or will technology and innovation save us?  Is reproductive freedom a fundamental liberty?  A panel of thought-leaders and scientists consisting of Professor John Guillebaud, Population Matters; Sara Parkin, Forum for the Future; Dr Rachel Murphy, University of Oxford; Fred Pearce, author of Peoplequake; and Sir Tony Wrigley, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, will discuss these contiguous issues on Tuesday, 25 October at the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms (to book, please visit /festivalofideas/).

Sara Parkin, from Forum for the Future believes there cannot be ‘infinite’ growth, saying: “When I was born it was only 2 billion and now it’s coming up to 7 billion.  And it’s a very simple equation; we’ve got a finite planet, constraining the goods and services that it can provide, while we seem to be pursuing infinite growth not just of the number of people, but a growth in what we’re consuming as well.”

But some academics believe that innovation – if given adequate support – could alleviate the pressure on our limited resources, allowing the population to grow without compromising individuals’ quality of life.

Fred Pearce, author of Peoplequake, believes that the population will soon level out and that with adequate innovation the Earth can handle the increased population:  “We are not overpopulated in an absolute sense, we’ve got the technology for 10 billion, probably 15 billion people, to live on this planet and live good lives.  What we haven’t done is developed our technology.”

There also remain questions about the rate at which the population will increase.  The growth rate peaked in 1963, and some people anticipate a negative population growth in Western European countries.  Is this the beginning of a trend?

Sir Tony Wrigley, from the University of Cambridge, adds: “The crucial issue is whether population will continue to grow as it has for most of the post war period – very rapidly.”

Our lifestyles, including our ever-increasing appetite for goods, are also having a dramatic impact on the consumption of the world’s resources.

“We take a piece of metal, weighing a ton, to go down to the shops and buy a loaf of bread and come home,” says Professor Guillebaud.  “I mean think of all the energy required to push a car a mile and then back again, just to get a small item you could have picked up on your bicycle.”

Parkin added: “We are not very good at long term planning, and it’s estimated we waste about 90% of the materials and energy that we mobilise for our way of life, so within that there’s a massive amount of opportunities for savings and efficiency and we just have to learn to do more with an awful lot less.”

For more information about the Festival of Ideas, please visit: /festivalofideas/