The importance of current affairs:
The world in 2051
How will the world change in your lifetime? It’s impossible to know exactly what the
future will be like, of course. Forty years ago no one could imagine today’s internet,
smartphones and iPads. The next 40 years are bound to bring lots of surprises. But in
some ways we can have a pretty good idea of the shape of things to come – and it makes
sense to think about this now, so that we can prepare for the changes ahead.
For example, we know that there will be a lot more people on our planet. The total
number of people on Earth—its population—is now a little over 7 billion. That’s more
than a hundred times the number of people who live in Britain. About 200 years ago
there were only about 1 billion people living in the whole world. It took another 100
years for the total to reach 2 billion. Since then the population has been growing very
fast.
Look at it this way. Adnan Nevic became famous as the six-billionth living person when
he was born in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on October 12th 1999. And Adnan was just
a few weeks past his 12th birthday when the world’s population reached 7 billion at the
end of October 2011. In other words, it had taken just a dozen years for the world to add
another 1 billion people.
Now think of the children born on October 31st 2011: people like Nargis Kumar, born in
a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, or Danica May Camacho, born in Manila,
in the Philippines. They are two of the children who were said to have taken the world’s
population to 7 billion that day. By the time they are, say, 40 years old, in 2051, how
many people will be living on our planet?
The experts who study population trends (they are called “demographers”) reckon there
will be over 9 billion people alive by then. So over the next 40 years the world will add
another 2 billion people. That is more than 30 times the number of people living in
Britain today.
Where will all these people be? About half of the extra 2 billion people will be in Africa.
Asia will still contain the largest number of people (today, one giant Asian country,
China, has more people than any other county; in 2051 another Asian giant, India, will
have overtaken China to be the world champion, with about 1.7 billion people compared
with 1.3 billion in China). Meanwhile our own continent, Europe, will have a shrinking
share of the global population.
The way people live will also be changing. Many more will be moving from villages to
towns and cities. Now about half the people in the world live in the countryside. But by
2051 roughly two out of three people will live in towns and cities.
The world’s population will, on average, be a lot older than it is today. For example,
today about one person out of 12 is aged over 65 years; by 2051 it will be one person in
six. Some countries – like Japan, Italy and also China – will have a particularly large
share of older people. Other countries, including plenty of places in Africa, will have
much younger populations.
These are big changes, and they raise big questions. Can we produce enough food to feed
so many more people? What will the impact be on the world’s natural resources? Will
countries create enough jobs to keep everyone busy and allow them to earn a living?
How will towns and cities cope with all the extra inhabitants? How will we look after so
many more pensioners (people who collect money because they have retired from
working)?
Some people are quite gloomy about the answers to these questions. They think the
world might struggle to cope with the pressure of a much bigger population. Others are
more optimistic. After all, the world has coped with a population that rose quickly from
5 billion to 6 billion and then from to 6 billion to 7 billion. And in the coming years we
will surely invent things – like more efficient ways to produce food and smarter ways to
run cities – that will help us adjust to a world of 9 billion people. What do you think?