Science & Technology

WW3 wouldn't affect world's population

By T.K. Randall
October 28, 2014 ·  90 comments

Our population is spiralling out of control. Image Credit: sxc.hu Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia looked at current population growth and then simulated what would happen to it under a number of common disaster scenarios.

Among these was the possibility of World War III with a death toll roughly equal to that of the previous two world wars combined.

Other catastrophes such as a global pandemic were also considered as part of the calculation.No matter the scenario however the results of the study indicated that even in the event of mass casualties our planet's runaway population growth would continue unabated.

"We were surprised that a five-year WW3 scenario, mimicking the same proportion of people killed in the first and second world wars combined, barely registered a blip on the human population trajectory this century," said study co-author Professor Barry Brook.

Nothing, not even stringest child birth restrictions seemed to make any difference to the prediction of unmanageable population levels by the turn of the next century.

Instead, the researchers argued that the most beneficial course of action would be to cut consumption of natural resources and improve our efforts to recycle as much as possible.

Source: Irish Examiner | Comments (90)

Tags: Population