2050 is the new 2000
I remember years ago thinking about the year 2000. I thought of how old I’d be and how the world would look. People wrote novels and articles on all the changes the new century would bring. Flying cars…robots…2 day work weeks and on and on…
The new year to look ahead to is 2050 which could bring a world few of us recognize.
The United Nations announced last week that our population had reached seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia.
They say to feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000.
The swelling population will cause all sorts of problems .
But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to global food supplies.
People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.
It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs. Why is this an issue?
More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet. Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations. Food scientist say start now to change the way we produce and distribute food so huge parts of the world don’t go without.
So while 30 years ago we were looking ahead to colonies on the moon, laser guns and food replicators al la Star Trek…we look 30 years on now and see populations running out of room , running out of food and the wars that could result. Certainly the news stories of the past week play into all of that.
Were we too optimistic all those years ago or are we too fatalistic now. That’s the million dollar question…of course by 2050 that question will be worth about 6 million. Just enough to buy a new flying car…