http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=growing-population-poses-malthusian-dilemma http://www.scientificamerican.com/department.cfm?id=feature-articles">Features - October 2, 2009
Another Inconvenient Truth: The World's Growing Population Poses a Malthusian Dilemma
Solving climate change, the Sixth Extinction and population growth... at the same time
By David Biello
By 2050, the
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=is-birth-control-the-answer-to-envi-2009-09-23">world will host nine billion people—and that's if population growth slows in much of the developing world. Today, at least one billion people are chronically malnourished or starving. Simply to maintain that sad state of affairs would require the clearing (read: deforestation) of 900 million additional hectares of land, according to Pedro Sanchez, director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program at The Earth Institute at Columbia University.
The bad news beyond the impacts on people, plants and animals of that kind of
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=can-trees-save-us-from-climate-chan-09-04-24">deforestation: There isn't that much land available. At most, we might be able to add 100 million hectares to the 4.3 billion already under cultivation worldwide.
"Agriculture is the main driver of
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-identify-safe-limits-for-human-impacts">most ecological problems on the planet," said economist Jeffrey Sachs,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=978">Scientific American columnist and Earth Institute director. "We are literally eating away the other species on the planet."
Sachs made his remarks yesterday at a symposium hosted by the institute on how to improve agriculture to address the mounting challenge of feeding the world while combating climate change and stopping the
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=sixth-extinction-wipes-out-animals-08-10-09">wholesale loss of biodiversity, among other interrelated issues.
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