Articles

Humanity has triggered the sixth mass extinction episode since the beginning of the Phanerozoic. The complexity of this extinction crisis is centred on the intersection of two complex adaptive systems: human culture and ecosystem functioning, although the significance of this intersection is not properly appreciated. Human beings are part of biodiversity and elements in a global ecosystem.

Lorsque le Britannique Thomas Robert Malthus publia la première édition de son Essai sur le principe de population (1796), la planète comptait environ un milliard d’humains. Il y soutenait que la population ayant tendance à progresser plus vite que les subsistances, celles-ci viendraient inéluctablement à manquer si l’on ne mettait pas des entraves à la procréation. Il plaidait en particulier pour le mariage tardif

In 1968, the best-seller “The Population Bomb,” written by Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned of the perils of overpopulation: mass starvation, societal upheaval, environmental deterioration. The book was criticized at the time for painting an overly dark picture of the future. But while not all of the Ehrlich’s dire predictions have come to pass, the world’s population has doubled since then, to over seven billion, straining the planet’s resources and heating up our climate.