overshoot
3 December 2004
Australian writer Reg Morrison likewise foresees that overshoot and collapse is where humanity is headed. In his scenario (i.e. no formal model), the world population rises to about 7.0 billion in the 2036. Thence it plunges to 3.2 billion in 2090 — an average loss of 71.4 million people per year (i.e. deaths minus births) during 54 years.
Given the current shape of the human population graph, those indicators also spell out a much larger and, from our point of view, more ominous message: the human plague cycle is right on track for a demographically normal climax and collapse. Not only have our genes managed to conceal from us that we are entirely typical mammals and therefore vulnerable to all of evolution's customary checks and balances, but also they have contrived to lock us so securely into the plague cycle that they seem almost to have been crafted for that purpose. Gaia is running like a Swiss watch. -(Morrison, 1999)
