14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past few decades, one of the greatest threats on civilization and our future on the planet has been, according to a number of scientists, overpopulation. It made sense, say, 30 to 40 years ago, to look at the population-growth rate and say that it was soon about to exceed sustainable limits. However, that turned out to be false, and the millions of people some authors believed would die of famine in the 1980s failed to do so. Now, experts identify overconsumption as one of the leading factors that could bring our demise as a species, or the downfall of our planet's systems, NewScientist reports.
A few decades ago, women had an average of four to five children, which validated concerns of overpopulation. Since then, the number of births in rich countries has fallen sharply, and more deaths than births are currently being registered. In poorer countries, where more babies are born, numbers have also decreased considerably, mostly because women are better educated, and decide to only bring into the world a number of children that they are sure they can feed.
But experts warn that, at a 6.8-billion population, the planet is rapidly reaching the limits of how it can provide for us in a sustainable manner. Even if the population growth drops further, the growth rate will not stop until at least eight billion people walk the Earth. Providing for them without depleting all of the planet's resources is very difficult to achieve, experts say. They believe that overconsumption slowly begins to show itself as one of the greatest threats humankind has faced to death. It is extremely spread in developed-market economies, where capitalism is very well established.
People in these countries see spending money on useless things as part of their way of life, and are therefore the most unlikely to curb their behavior. Unfortunately for the world, even if the rest of the globe's population only sticks to the basic things it needs, this would have little effects on the overall trends. The largest percentage of consumption takes place in countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, Japan and France. On average, statistics show that one European or one American is responsible for having a larger yearly footprint on the environment than an entire African village.