Sustainability is destroying the Earth

[GliderGuider]

36. Population increase depends on a functional civilization.

In my mental model, population begins to decline shortly after a crash in economic activity, as we saw during the breakup of the USSR.

If I had to sketch a prediction I'd say the "real" economic crash could happen 10 years from now. I like the analogy to seismic activity. Like a major seismic event, the big crash will probably be preceded by several smaller but still substantial "foreshocks", of which the 2008 Great Recession was the first. IMO we could get the second one late this year or early next. Another could follow about five years after that, one more 2 years later, followed by the "big one" around 2025. The sequence will probably be sprinkled with smaller regional rumbles and shakes. Climate-driven crop failures in various regions will likely play a key role in these events.

Population growth would flatten out over the next decade, due to falling birth rates as people stop having kids due to the economic chaos. See Virginia Abernethy's Fertility Opportunity Hypothesis for some thoughts on why this happens. After the big one, world population should begin to decline as the death rate climbs. This sequence follows the Russian model: