Six degrees of Empty Planet / Empty World

It started with an article in yesterday’s SCMP by Stephen McCarty titled “We are the problem”. Homo Sapiens are the virus on the world. And it will get worse as we grow to 11 billion by 2100. We are relentless, voracious, destructive. Says McCarty. 

But those figures aren’t right, anymore, are they? Aren’t the latest projections for the world population to start dropping from 2050? 

I recalled a book by a couple of Canadian demographers along this line. I thought I’d posted something, so I searched “population” on this blog, which led to some fun reading of posts from as early as 2010, but nothing on the book. 

So I googled “Canadian authors of book on declining population” and got “‘Empty Planet’: is the threat of overpopulation a myth?” from the Canadian Broadcasting Commission. Bingo! That’s the one. [and isn’t Google great!..]

And this morning I wanted to look at the interview again on YouTube, so searched “empty world” instead of “planet” (mistake) and got a whole bunch of videos of corona-empty streets around the world.  Like the one above. Weird World, Empty World.

And got “The Sound of Reason” by Empty World. (2008). With the line:  “Somehow things just don’t seem right…”. Oh boy!
And one hour of dystopian music about an Empty World. Great!

The “Empty Planet” authors say that the fertility trends worldwide simply do not allow for the 11 billion estimate that the United Nations still predicts. We will reach 9 billion, give or take, and then start declining.  For a long time. 

They also predict that China’s population will decline, dropping by a much as half a billion by 2100, while the United States may continue to rise because of immigration. At century’s end their populations may be roughly similar. "That has geopolitical implications". You bet it does!

The ‘Empty Planet’  link above has a 12 minute recording of an interview with one of the authors and a transcript. Thought provoking.
ADDED: the book is here. Published 5th February 2019.
ADDED: the reviews, most popular positive and most popular negative were both interesting, so led me to order the book to make up my own mind. Which book I now have on Kindle. Yet to read.