![]() The UN expects the global population to peak around 2100, but other experts - and Musk - believe that is far too optimistic. Japan and Russia are already suffering record declines while many African countries are enjoying rapid growth. While the same population forces are taking hold across the world, individual countries are at different stages. Ageing populations risk draining resources as experts warn of a 100-year life cycle on the horizon. what do we do if we are going to live decades longer than before? How do we stop that becoming a burden?”Ī shrinking, and most importantly ageing, population will present big economic challenges, from funding and manning stretched health services to readapting housing and coping with a smaller workforce to tax. Increasing the pension age is a rational response to the fact that we all live longer…. “We have taken some steps in governments over the years but nothing like enough. “This is genuinely a timebomb,” says Tory MP Damian Green, former Work and Pensions Secretary and head of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity. It is an issue that is slowly gaining prominence and climbing up the political agenda. ![]() What is certain is that many countries will be facing a population crisis this decade. The nature broadcaster has called for the global population to be brought under control in order to maintain living standards, calling humanity a “plague on Earth”. Populations in countries including Japan are already in decline, while those in the likes of Spain, South Korea and China are set to halve by 2100.īut for some, including Sir David Attenborough, the big population bust should not be feared. Once a problem far in the future, the population crisis is arriving earlier than expected after the Covid baby bust. “If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars.” “We should be much more worried about population collapse,” Musk warned in a series of tweets last week, calling the UN’s more sanguine projections “utter nonsense”. But Musk fears his plan to colonise the Red Planet will fail to take off if Earth cannot even sustain its own population. The SpaceX boss hopes to have people landing on Mars within five years as part of his vision for a “futuristic Noah’s ark”. Elon Musk’s quest to make humanity a multi-planet species has a hitch. ![]()
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