Throughout the twentieth century the population has more than quadrupled. And although there has been a decline in the population growth rate, it continues to increase by about 80 million each year, so it can double again in a few decades. The World Commission on Environment and Development (1988) has long pointed out the consequences: “In many parts of the world, the population grows at rates that the available environmental resources cannot sustain, rates that are exceeding all reasonable expectations of improvement in housing, medical care, food security or energy supply ”.
Around 40% of the primary photosynthetic production of terrestrial ecosystems is used by the human species every year to fundamentally eat, obtain wood and firewood, etc. That is, the human species is about to consume as much as all other species.
As explained by the Sustainability experts, within the framework of the so-called Rio + 5 Forum, the current population would require the resources of three Lands (!) To reach a standard of living similar to that of developed countries. It can be said, then, that we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, that is, the maximum number of human beings that the planet can maintain permanently. In fact, the biocapacity of the planet for each inhabitant has been estimated at 1.7 hectares (that is, the productive land available to meet the needs of each of the more than 7,000 million inhabitants of the planet) while currently the ecological footprint Average per inhabitant is 2.8 hectares.
“Even if they consume, on average, much less than today, the nine billion men and women who will populate the Earth by 2050 will inevitably subject it to enormous stress” (Delibes and Delibes, 2005).
