14 DAY TRIAL // A recent investigation whose findings are detailed in a paper in yesterday's issue of the journal Science found that our planet has high chances to be home to about 11 billion people by the year 2100.
As detailed by specialist Adrian Raftery with the University of Washington in the US, this latest estimate exceeds previous predictions by an impressive 2 billion.
What's more, it contradicts claims that, after hitting 9 billion, the world's population will plateau, maybe even begin to gradually decline, the researcher further explains.
“The consensus over the past 20 years or so was that world population, which is currently around 7 billion, would go up to 9 billion and level off or probably decline,” Adrian Raftery says in a statement.
“We found there’s a 70 percent probability the world population will not stabilize this century. Population, which had sort of fallen off the world’s agenda, remains a very important issue,” he adds.
By the looks of it, most of the predicted population growth will happen in Africa. Specifically, it is expected that, by the end of the century, this continent will quadruple its population and reach 4 billion.
As far as Asia is concerned, specialists say that, judging by how things are going, its population will likely hit 5 billion people in 2050 and then start to drop.
North America, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean will maintain a population of just 1 billion people each, maybe even fewer.
Researchers warn that, the more people our planet is forced to accommodate for, the worse issues such as climate change, infectious disease, and poverty could get. Hence, they recommend that efforts be made to lower the fertility rate, especially in Africa.
Adrian Raftery and fellow researchers argue that simply educating girls and women and ensuring better access to contraceptives would really help limit population growth in Africa.