We could be on the cusp of a
global apocalypse fungus
affecting rubber producing
plants has destroyed 10
Percent of global supply.
Rubber is increasingly hard to
import for some industries.
So what's the problem here?
Well, it's multiple factors.
The concern is that there's
literally not enough sand on
coastlines in a context of
rising sea levels and increased
storms
In 20 20. The birth rate dropped
to its lowest level in thirty
five years
To continue to grow.
We need innovators, inventors
and as we have fewer children,
we will have fewer of those
With seven point eight billion
and counting people on the
planet. We are stretching the
carrying capacity of the
planet. We know that we're
breaching certain boundaries.
The coronavirus pandemic has
sent supply chains into a
tailspin. First, it was toilet
paper. Then it was ketchup,
packets, gnomes,
semiconductors. Now it's
rubber.
Multiple factors are leading to
a major rubber shortage around
the world. This could be
getting a lot worse.
We could be on the cusp of the
apocalypse
To ensure an uninterrupted
supply of natural rubber from
the few regions of the world
which grow. It is a major
concern of every world power.
Most of all, the United States,
The global natural rubber market
was valued at nearly $40
billion in 2020,
But the rubber is really
continuing to increase.
One analysis predicts the rubber
market could be worth nearly
sixty eight point five billion
dollars by twenty twenty six.
Rubber is a critical raw
material. Just think anytime
you're going anywhere by car,
plane or even by foot, you're
using rubber. But rubber is
also used in your personal
protective equipment like
gloves and masks like the
elastics that stretch behind
your ears. Plus, it's used in
literal rubber bands.
And then there are hair ties,
underwear erasers, condoms and
more rubber ducks, though those
are plastic. It's used in more
than 40000 commercial products.
You could call it the shortage.
Some people are referring to it
more as a supply chain
disruption.
Rubber producers are working
against all odds climate
change, disease, both COVID and
a destructive fungus.
Not to mention the fight for
shipping containers.
So let's break down what
exactly this all means for the
rubber shortage. Before the
coronavirus struck, the rubber
industry faced challenges.
But to start, here's how rubber
is made. While natural rubber
anyway, it's kind of like how
you would tap a tree for maple
sirup. Certain trees can be
tapped for liquid.
Sap, also known as latex latex,
is gathered from the trees by
making a cut in the bark,
collecting the runny sap in
cups.
By mid-morning, the workers are
ready to begin their
collection.
It's called the heavier
Brazilians, and, as the name
suggests, is a tree that is
originally of South America.
Ammonia is added to keep the sap
from solidifying, then acid is
added in a process called
coagulation to extract the
rubber. A few hours later, the
mixture goes through rollers to
remove excess water.
Then layers of rubber are hung
over racks to drive for a
couple of days before being
folded into bales for
processing. There are synthetic
rubbers.
America's synthetic rubber
problem nears a solution, but
sometimes
It can't be swapped out for the
real thing because of natural
rubbers. Particular properties
take airplane tires as an
example. Got to be 100 percent
natural rubber, and most
natural rubber doesn't come
from the U.S., not even North
America. In fact, most of the
world's natural rubber 90
percent of it comes from
Southeast Asia.
Thailand, specifically the
largest producer,
The U.S. imported one hundred
and forty dollars million worth
of natural rubber in March 2021
alone. Most of that rubber
comes from independent farmers
in Southeast Asia, also known
as smallholders.
Eighty five percent of the
natural rubber that we have in
the world today is produced by
smallholders. So these are
families that or work on lands
that are usually one to two
hectares in size.
This means that one to two
soccer or football fields
Those families of farmers are at
war with diseases destroying
the crops.
Fungus affecting rubber
producing plants has destroyed
10 percent of global supply,
but personal autopsies in the
use of carcass trees were only
like eight feet apart.
And they're all clones.
So there's very little genetic
diversity. So is a bunch of
identical twins.
For miles on end, so of course,
if one gets a bad disease,
they're all susceptible to it.
There's no immunity.
It's a desperately sensitive
system,
And farmers face the impacts of
climate change on their
business.
Extreme weather events last year
had a significant impact on
that loss and production.
But you know, if you've got
major floods, you're going to.
You trees, you know, you've got
tsunamis and typhoons, you
know, again, major major issues
on on supply.
Farmers have to be strategic
about planting their crops.
You have to plant a tree and
that tree takes four to seven
years to mature before you can
get rubber out of it.
So if there's not enough
careful planning and enough
resources that are put into
replanting, then we see what
we've seen in the past years
that you have a cyclical nature
in the availability of rubber.
So basically, the prices are
low, right? What happens is
that people don't plant because
it seems that there is no
business case for rubber.
At a certain point, demand
keeps increasing up to a point
where prices start picking up
and people start planting
rubber a lot. But that rubber
doesn't come into fruition
until four seven years after
that. And when it comes into
the market, then you have a
slump in prices.
This causes rubber farmers to
face unreliable income streams
that makes it hard to afford
resources to fight off those
diseases.
Rubber stamp is really being
paid like two dollars to six
dollars a day. You know, that's
not a living wage.
There was no money left to
improve the health of the
plants. You know, there's no
money left for fertilizers or
for proper tree maintenance.
And then COVID 19 scrambles the
supply chain even further.
Now, demand for rubber is
spiking. Part of the reason car
tires
The tires is by far the largest
consumer of natural rubber.
But what really matters is how
much are people using tires,
Yeah with food deliveries and,
well, not just food, but goods
in general, we are using tires
more and more.
Manufacturers have told CNBC
that they haven't been affected
yet.
Tire maker Goodyear telling
CNBC, We are not currently
experiencing supply
limitations.
I got the semi thing already
going. But how about rubber?
We got enough Yeah, you know,
Jim. Short answer is we do.
We never have had a problem of
getting supply of that natural
rubber. So it's, you know, it's
something that's always out
there. A lot of speculation
going on. I can never say never
about something that could
happen to Southeast Asian
rubber trees that we haven't
been affected by.
This obviously very, very
difficult overall.
Global supply chain disruption
And now shipping containers are
hard to come by.
We're hearing that rubber is
increasingly hard to import for
some industries. So what's the
problem here? Well, it's
multiple factors a lack of
shipping containers bottleneck
caused by the Suez Canal and a
recent surge in demand from end
users.
Supply chains are very much at
capacity at the moment during
COVID. The sheer fact that
because people are home and the
way the things are working, the
shipment of goods has
increased.
And since most rubber comes from
Thailand 15000 miles away, the
shipping delays have caused
businesses to find alternative
routes.
Consumers who buy direct in
Southeast Asia have been
utilizing air transport to
bring natural rubber.
Those fifteen thousand miles
from Southeast Asia to the
United States,
Plus supply problems can be
traced to processing plants,
which are also known as OEMs.
Original equipment
manufacturers. Some OEMs shut
down due to COVID outbreaks.
Consumer element of the
business, especially because of
the OEMs, of course, shutting
down significantly in 2020.
But that's also bouncing back
quite well.
Now, industrial companies are
thinking about rubber
innovation.
I think our goal also in the mid
and long term is to continue to
invest in technology, also to
put in parallel other other way
of synthetic rubber or other
ways of really coping with this
potential disruption.
Not just companies, but the
Biden administration, to very
Much into this critical material
supply chain security and
really is really U.S.
security is homeland security
Of all critical and strategic
materials. Rubber is the one
which presents the greatest
threat to the safety of our
nation.
We don't have rubber. We have no
security besides security.
The U.S. simply also has to meet
demand.
Some scientists see opportunity
here. Dr. Cornish at Ohio State
University is developing rubber
from plants. She's still two to
three years away from
Getting this to market, and the
goal is to make the US
initially independent, you
know, so that they actually
have our own natural rubber
supply in the states.
And so we're not having to
import it all from the other
side of the world all the time.
Cornish and her team, both at
her startup and at Ohio State,
are working on sustainable
solutions to growing rubber in
the U.S.. Turns out, rubber is
harvestable from dandelions.
That you see the latex coming
out of the roots, their system
that I developed at the
university, where you can grow
the dandelions hydroponically,
cut the roots off, grow them
back down, cut them off, grow
them back down, cut them off,
and you get a very highly
productive system for rubber
production.
But for the U.S. to be a real
rubber player, it'll take a lot
of time, commitment and cash.
Somebody has to come up with the
money to build that vertical
farm. Those things are really
expensive. It's like a million
dollars for 10 Acre Farm
Vertical Farm with 12 layers.
There also needs to be
processing plants, and Cornish
says it'll take a $40 million
investment to make that first
processing plant until rubber
innovations hit the market.
The U.S. and the rest of the
world, for that matter, will
stay dependent on Southeast
Asia for natural rubber.
The issue is who's going to have
to bear the cost of this?
And my hope is that we are not
going to see the farmers paying
the cost of this disruption.
The industry has got to
understand that prices are
going to go up, but that for
the health of the industry,
they need to go up and stay up.
We really put our efforts to
ensure that the farmers that
are producing these
commodities, that we support
these farmers in their
countries to be able to carry
out this work in a dignified
way and to ensure that they can
make a decent living out of the
work that they're doing to
producing these commodities are
so important for keeping our
standards of living in the
countries where we can benefit
from the wealth that we have.
You may think of sand as part of
your beach vacation, but it's
used for more than just sand
castles. It's a commodity like
oil and copper and gold.
You look around you. Everything
is made of sand.
It's a pretty crucial commodity.
And even though sand can be
found in nearly every single
country on Earth, we could soon
face a sand shortage.
Turns out, sand is only second
to water as the most consumed
raw material worldwide.
Sand mining is the largest
mining industry in the world,
and yet it flies under the
radar, largely unregulated and
unknown.
All society is basically built
on sand on how come there's no
monitoring on that? And how
come people are ready to kill
someone else for sand in some
region?
It's used in construction like
critical infrastructure, and
President Biden is diverting a
lot of his attention to
America's infrastructure.
Sand is also used in chemical
production, water filtration,
fracking and, of course, glass.
So all of your windows,
computers and cell phones.
You know, it's literally
everywhere. We're driving on
it. We're sitting in it.
We're looking through. It's
absolutely extraordinary and
really starting to be concerned
about what happens if we don't
have this anymore.
Sand use around the world has
tripled in the last 20 years.
That's far greater than the
rate that sand is being
replenished.
One of the biggest
sustainability challenges of
the 21st century, simply
because of the scale of the
problem, the more I learned
about it, the more alarmed I
became.
So the world is facing a sand
crisis, and that's a problem.
I know what you're thinking.
Yes, sand is everywhere.
How can there be a shortage?
Actually, in some places, the
world was running out, and it's
such a hard concept to get your
head around because you think
of coastlines and expanse of
deserts and just see so much of
it. But to think of it not
being there, it is very, very
challenging.
It's a classic example of the
tragedy of the Commons, an
economic concept where everyone
is incentivized to keep
consuming a natural resource
even if it ends in
overconsumption and ultimately
the total depletion of that
resource.
Is it a crisis or not?
And that's one of the hard
things with this topic that
it's a problem that manifests
in very different ways and very
different places.
So I bet you, if you were in a
community where sand mining is
going on like this is not a
surprise to you at all.
I grew up in Bangalore, in south
India. As I grew up.
I constantly read reports about
rivers being decimated because
of sand mining, and at the same
time, I saw hundreds and
hundreds of sand filled trucks
flying up and down the roads in
the city of Bangalore. That was
when the city was being
transformed to the Silicon
Valley of India. Basically
construction boom happening all
over and all that sand was
coming from precious places.
Construction has caused a steep
increase in demand for sand,
and a lot of sand is being
extracted from oceans and
rivers.
Not just shortage in the market,
it shortage in the natural
environment that has to be
talked about. The concern is
that there is literally not
enough sand on coastlines in a
context of rising sea levels
and increased storms.
Sand crafted by water is more
valuable than desert sand,
eroded by wind that makes
desert sand too smooth.
It doesn't bind together, as
well as other types of sand.
Sand sourced and extracted from
sea beds, coastlines, quarries
or rivers is more angular, so
it locks together.
And that's important because
this kind of sand is a key
ingredient in cement and
concrete
And concrete is made up of 65 to
75 percent sand and gravel.
Then there's glass, sand, gravel
and rock crushed together or
melted down to make the glass
used in every window.
Computer screen and smartphone
Glass is about 70 percent silica
sand, so there are very
specific types of sand that are
required for specific uses, and
these places are limited.
Even the production of silicon
computer chips uses sand, but
extracting sand can damage the
environment.
Extractions of marine sand,
coastal sand beach beaches the
worst and rivers is something
that is leading to tremendous
environmental impact for
oceans.
Well, imagine you scrape sand
off the bottom of the ocean
that's going to affect the
microorganisms that live in the
ocean floor. That's going to
affect the fish that eat the
microorganisms and then the
fish that eat those fish.
Basically, the sand removal
affects an entire ecosystem.
Sand is the most extracted
resource in the world by
volume, surpassing even fossil
fuels. Actually, even
extracting oil and gas uses a
lot of sand, like in fracking.
And yet sand has been easy to
ignore.
Essentially, it's invisible in
our minds and in the way that
we manage the resource.
We don't think about it like a
strategic resource.
And yet it is everywhere in our
societies and our economies.
And as a result, we've wasting
these resources. And in 2019,
we produce this report, which
was submitted to the United
Nations Environmental Assembly,
and it was used for making a
new resolution on global
mineral governance.
And it was adopted by all
countries. And it is the first
time that countries recognize
that we have a problem.
We sent this concept of
panicking. It reminds me a
little bit of Greta Thunberg
talking about, I want you to
panic. I want you to panic.
She was talking to the World
Economic Forum, and it didn't
quite go that far.
Panicking will never be a
solution. We will need sand
forever. It's something that we
need a lot, so we need to be
much wiser on the way we use
the resource.
Right now, it's not really
possible to monitor global sand
use.
We just don't know enough, we
don't have that global picture
or that holistic picture of the
extraction sites, the
extraction volumes, where it's
coming from, where it's going
to, how it's being used,
But it can be measured
indirectly.
Construction is the biggest
demand sector. We know that
there's
A very, very good correlation
between the use of sand and
cement. The U.N.
estimates that four point one
billion tons of cement is
produced every year, and it
takes roughly 10 tons of sand
to create one ton of cement.
Do the math and
Puts you one billion tons of
sand and gravel.
That's enough to build a wall
nearly 89 feet high by eighty
nine feet wide.
That wraps around the planet
every year.
And that's just sand used in
cement production.
Demand for cement is driven
primarily by China, where
construction is booming.
In the last two decades, the
amount of sand that we've been
using has been multiplied by
three. More than 55 58 percent
is being used in China.
Part of the problem is some
countries don't have
regulations in place,
And then you have people who
take sand from the beach, take
samples from anywhere because
they have to make their living.
If you have a shovel and an
access to a truck, then you
make you an entrepreneur,
you're taking sand and you're
selling
It in some parts of the world.
There are even sand mafias.
Also, mafia, it is.
It is a problem, that's for
sure. So in some countries
where the governments, the
policies do not exist, it's not
even illegal to take sand.
Plus, the world faces a rapidly
growing population.
By 2050, the world could reach
nearly 10 billion people.
Africa is going to see its
population doubling from now to
2050. People are shifting from
their villages to join the
cities that will request more
infrastructure in the cities.
All of that will request a lot
of sand.
Sand can't be extracted or
sourced sustainably to meet
demand from a world of 10
billion people without
effective planning and
regulation.
If your local government, you
need to have a solid land
planning, identify where the
sand and gravel should be
extracted.
The challenge is understanding
where it's OK to take it from
and how
Much, so it's important to plan
ahead and to plan plan
alternatives.
It's a time for innovation in
this area.
There's no one size fits all
solution for the looming sand
crisis.
We need many solutions that you
know will also work together.
It's not going to be like one
alternative material is going
to make the difference. I think
it's going to have to be a big
group effort, a big push
collectively to figure this
out.
Finding alternatives to sand,
including recycled materials,
may help.
We can recycle concrete so that
we're not wasting that by
dumping these resources as a
waste. Because it's not a
waste, it can be recycled.
Current economy is geared
towards mining this material at
extreme cost to the environment
and to society, but that isn't
factored in. We kind of build
things and then at the end of
life, we simply toss it in the
landfill. So it's a very linear
economy. But changing this to a
circular economy can be a
significant solution, and the
circular economy is a way that
keeps materials in use for
longer.
We can improve extracting in a
better way by doing
environmental impact assessment
prior to mine.
Then mining in an appropriate
way, respecting social and
environmental conditions.
Then we can reduce the amount
of sand by being much more
clever on how we use it.
So that means planning for
longer term in terms of having
a building that is not done
after 20 30 years, we expand
that to 50 60 years.
Sand is a finite resource.
Every time we remove sand from
the ecosystem, we are taking
away critical habitat.
We are taking away coastal
security because sand along the
coast acts as a stone buffer.
So when we extract sand, it
comes at a cost and this needs
to be really, really balanced
with the needs of future
generations.
Having children is the ultimate
vote of confidence in the
future.
It's you really believe in what
your opportunities are going to
be going forward. You're very
certain about what your future
looks like in this quarantine
time. That's the last thing
that we can say.
Mothers typically talk about the
more children you had as bad
for their pocketbook.
What we learned from the Great
Recession is that every one
percentage point increase in
the unemployment rate reduces
births by one percent.
Despite speculation of a surge
in quarantine babies, the U.S.
fertility rate is actually
shrinking and has been for a
while.
Births have been falling for the
last almost 15 years now at
this point.
Millennials have less financial
confidence than the generation
before us. Living through our
second once in a lifetime
recession has made big
financial decisions like
providing for and creating a
brand new human like mine.
This here, Sydney quite
difficult.
An I've got two little kids, so
I'm pretty concerned for them.
Plus, there's a prevailing
ideology that large families
are a drain on the environment.
The costs of ongoing economic
growth, as it's currently
designed, are causing damage to
planet and people.
Meanwhile, baby boomers are
retiring and aging out of the
system.
If you have an economy that
since the end of the Second
World War has grown based on
consumerism, what happens when
all your consumers are old and
they have everything they want?
So is the U.S.
running out of people?
And what impact does population
size have on the economy to
maintain the current population
size? Every woman would need to
have 2.1 children.
This is known as the rate of
Replacement, and the point one
is because not everyone goes on
to have children themselves,
and there's some child
mortality in the United States.
The total fertility rate that
measure is now around one point
seven.
The total fertility, or birth
rate refers to the actual
number of children each woman
is having. Currently, there are
nearly seven point eight
billion people in the world,
over three hundred and thirty
million in the U.S..
Through fertility alone, we
would expect our population to
start to decline if that rate
is sustained for a very long
period.
People think, for example, that
fertility is out of control.
Well, the truth is it isn't.
I mean, if you take a look
particularly at millennial
fertility in the United States,
it's down to one now.
The American birth rate is well
below replacement rate and
continuing to decline.
Although declining fertility
rates can be a leading
indicator for a recession, it
is more often correlated with
increased education and
opportunities for women.
But female workers add a lot to
the bottom line. According to
one study, if women entered and
stayed in the U.S.
workforce at the same rate as
they do in Norway, the U.S.
economy would be one point six
trillion. Larger American women
now are having fewer children
than our mothers in twenty
twenty. The birth rate dropped
to its lowest level in thirty
five years. There's also been a
huge decline in teenage births
in the US.
What's clear is that there are
less unintentional births than
ever before.
In addition to the decline that
we've been seeing in fertility,
there is another trend that's
happening underneath that,
which is an increasing age at
birth.
It's more like in the late 20s
or 30s or something. Now,
compared to during the baby
boom, it would have been 20.
It used to be, you know,
uncommon to see a 40 something
year old woman who is now
planning a pregnancy.
Now that seems to almost be, at
least for us, a norm.
Women have changed the lives
that they want to live.
When they have more of a
decision to make about the type
of family, they're more
empowered to make the kind of
decision they want to make
about their family. And when
they make that decision, not
for everybody, but for most
people, it's fewer kids.
So women are waiting to have
their first child longer and
then their subsequent children.
What's sort of remains to be
seen in this area is the extent
to which the decline in
fertility that we're seeing is
really a delay of births so
that these declines for women
in their teens and early 20s
will be made up later when
they're in their thirties, or
whether this is a permanent
reduction in their lifetime
fertility.
The pandemic may have
accelerated this trend as
people are less likely to have
babies in uncertain financial
times. That might mean less
American born workers,
consumers and students.
However, that could work out
well for babies like Sydney
when she applies for a job in
20
Years at the end of the day.
The fewer people you're
competing with. The easier
things are for you there is
that in terms of the upside.
But, you know, I mean, who
knows, maybe one of the kids
that isn't born is going to
cure cancer would have cured
cancer.
Population size and fertility
rates should inform how we plan
for the future and how we think
about social programs.
For example, if there are less
younger workers able to pay
into Social Security the way it
is currently set up, the funds
will run out in my lifetime.
So in particular, you hear
people talk a lot about Social
Security. That's a system where
current workers support current
retirees. And so as the
population ages, we have more
retirees, but fewer births.
People are worried that that
system is not going to be
sustainable and there are other
programs that face that
challenge. There are also
concerns about economic growth
to continue to grow. We need
innovators, inventors, workers
and as we have fewer children,
we will have fewer of those
those inputs into economic
growth,
You know, but that actually has
important implications. Even
before you get to that. I mean,
like if we have, you know, a
birth decline now means five
years from now, you know, it's
probably is not the great time
to be thinking about school
construction, for instance.
I worry about people who would
love to bring kids into the
world, but just feel like they
can't, that the costs are too
high or that they don't feel
good enough about their
economic security, their
economic futures to be able to
make that decision.
If you really thought about what
was happening in terms of our
population and what it looked
like going forward, you change
the way that you ask even ask
questions about what the future
economy is going to be.
So as we have workers who are
more productive, then you can
sustain more retirees for
individual, for each individual
worker.
Japan, which has had a falling
birth rate for years, is a
leader in innovation.
Japan is when it comes to things
like fertility and aging is the
canary in the coal mine for all
of us. The median age of Japan
is forty eight now.
Their birth rate is down around
one point four or one point
five, and they lose
approximately four hundred
thousand people from their
population every year.
So what's the solution in Japan
robots? If you want to talk
about industrial robots or
robots of any type, they're
looking at all those types of
solutions. Why it's not.
It's, you know, it might make
for interesting science fiction
or whatever, and we might think
it's just a peculiar thing.
But the truth is, it's a
necessity. It can't be anything
but bad. And the reason that
it's going to be bad is because
robots don't buy, don't buy new
outfits. They don't buy cars.
They don't they they don't buy
things. They're not consumers.
They can help your
productivity, but they can't
help. They can't help the
consumer situation,
You know, at the end of the day,
people matter.
So the more people there are,
the more economic activity
there is.
If the main economic concern is
finding new consumers,
adjusting our interpretation of
who a consumer is can help.
For example, we can shift our
focus to the aging population
So economic growth is generated
by people who are typically
something like 16 to 60 in
their prime working years.
And if you ever if you get it
shifted toward the top so that
you have more retirees, as is
happening right now with the
baby boom generation entering
into that phase or you have
fewer at the bottom that are
going to be future workers,
then that upsets that balance.
Now, I think what some people
are worried about is that we
may have both of those things
happening at the same time.
So one of the biggest challenges
that we've got going forward is
to how how we can trigger that,
that generational transfer of
funds from the older population
by turning them into consumers.
The way we think about
generational transfer of funds
as we think about mom and mum
and dad willingness the money
when we need it faster.
One of the biggest prejudices
that we have in terms of
looking at the economy is we
only see old people as
consumers. They're sitting in
all the best houses.
They have all the money, they
have all the pensions, they
have everything. The single
biggest power group in the
economy going forward are older
women because there's a lot of
them and there's more every
day. Women outlive men.
There are always more boys
going than girls in every
country, except where there's
an artificial artificial
intervention. But by the age of
30 and most developed
countries, there's more women
than men. And then every year
after that, so it's not that
old women outlive old men,
which they do. It's that women
outlive men in every age
category. Once we get to middle
Age, the U.S. can look beyond
our borders for more consumers
and workers.
The easiest way to manipulate
the size of the population is
through migration immigration.
I think it's important to point
out that more babies is not the
only way out of those problems,
so immigration is an obvious
way where we can continue to
grow our population.
First of all, immigration
policies work instantly.
If you want another 25 year old
worker, you bring in another 25
year old worker fertility
prenatal as fertility policies
are about, you know,
20 years from now. And frankly,
for the history of the United
States, it's been the huge
American advantage.
It's still is the shining city
on the hill for most people in
the world. If they're going to
immigrate and we do surveys at
Ipsos where I see this, the
most popular place for people
to immigrate in the world is
still in the United States.
There are still a lot of people
out there looking for a new
country to call home.
The UNHCR estimates there were
seventy nine point five million
forcibly displaced people
worldwide at the end of twenty
nineteen. Forty percent of
those were children.
There are also twenty six
million refugees, half of whom
are children.
What we're particularly
concerned about is that every
country in the world, wherever
possible, can enable people to
move to their countries and in
particular can absorb refugees
and asylum seekers.
We have to retain that
compassionate capacity.
Many of those displacements are
occurring because of drastic
changes in the environment.
The World Bank estimates that
by 2050, there will be one
hundred and forty three million
additional climate migrants
from just Latin America,
sub-Saharan Africa and
Southeast Asia, so there won't
be a deficit anytime soon.
Since the publication of the
population bomb in nineteen
sixty eight, there's been a
prevailing ideology that the
world is facing a dire
overpopulation problem.
That's not true
At the moment, with 7.8 billion
and counting people on the
planet. We are stretching the
carrying capacity of the
planet. We know that we're
breaching certain boundaries,
whether it's climate, whether
it's marine fisheries, whether
it's freshwater, etc., etc..
Experts worry that the planet
has reached its so-called
carrying capacity or the total
amount of people the Earth can
sustain.
If we think about the global
population, there are
projections that suggest the
world is going to reach its max
capacity sometimes within the
next 100 years.
And that's because while
fertility is below replacement
rate within the U.S.
and other developed countries,
it is not elsewhere. So on net,
we expect to see the world
population to continue to grow
for the next several decades.
We do know that at the moment
we're over stressing our planet
and we also know that people
want to choose to have smaller
families when they have the
ability, when they have the
access and the choice, and
therefore we can make positive
progressive moves to take the
heat off the planet and
particularly in terms of
climate change.
Project drawdown ranks family
planning and educating girls in
its top 10 solutions to climate
change. Remember, though, that
people in developed nations
consume more renewable
resources than those in
developing nations.
The Global Footprint Network
estimates that if all the
people on the Earth consumed as
much as Americans do, we would
need five hundred percent of
the Earth's natural resources
to sustain the population.
For comparison, they estimate
that if everyone used renewable
resources at the same rate as
those in India, we would only
be using 70 percent of one
earths renewable resources.
But we see as countries develop,
fertility tends to decline.
And so we expect as development
spreads around the world, that
that will happen. And that's
why we project that actually
populations will start to
decline around the world
sometime within the next
hundred years.
Global population is expected to
peak at nine point seven
billion by twenty sixty four
and then fall back down to
eight point eight billion by
twenty one hundred.
And Bangladesh would be a good
example where through voluntary
means without coercion working
at the community level through
women's groups, they reduce
their fertility rate from seven
to eight kids per woman in the
70s and 80s, down to two point
two near replacement now.
And that's had a really
beneficial effect. The women
have become more economically
active. They're doing stuff in
their community.
They're able to make choices.
They've taken the pressure off
their environment.
If you're thinking that the
population is going to be 11
billion or 10 billion people by
the end of the century, you've
got real concerns about that.
But what if I told you that the
population was probably going
to be the same as it is today,
or maybe even smaller when if
we're carrying the population
that we already have and
technology is going to continue
to improve from everything,
from agriculture to cleaning on
our environment to
transportation, everything that
you can imagine then by the end
of the century, I think, are
probably going to be OK.