Nicholas Stern: 'I got it wrong on climate change – it's far, far worse'

[NoOneMan]

80. That its not going to be an uphill ride

A freeze frame of the present reveals a civilization at the peak of its power. Within the
space of a few decades, humanity will have experienced peak population, peak oil, peak
water, peak land, and perhaps even peak crop yields. Yet, even at the height of power,
having taken virtual control of the biosphere and having turned the arable Earth into a vast
feeding lot for our species, it still has not been enough. In what amounts to the greatest
perpetual famine in human history, nearly three billion people are without proper food and
water; 850 million lack the minimal bodily requirements of protein and calories; half the
world is chronically deficient in at least one of the essential micronutrients; nine million
die each year from starvation and diseases of malnourishment. Now, with deteriorating
conditions of planetary forests, soil, water, oil, climate, and ecosystems, we are expecting
to improve the quality of life for billions of more people in the coming decades. There is a
flaw with the logic of our expectations—one which may well translate into billions of
additional malnourished people by mid-century, or, indeed, could even augur a painful
population crash

Population crash: prospects for famine in the twenty-first century
Received: 1 October 2008 / Accepted: 7 April 2009 / Published online: 6 May 2009
! Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009