Question 23.40

image 10. Divide the countries of the world into three groups with differing rates of increase (see the accompanying table). (Why is this useful?)

  1. Redo the projections in Exercise 9a for the years 2035 and 2050 by projecting each group separately and adding the totals. Is there a major difference from the results in Exercise 9a?
    Group Population
    Mid-2015 (billions)    		 Rate
    of Growth (%)
    More developed countries 1.25 0.1
    Less developed countries (excluding China) 4.70 1.7
    China 1.40 0.5
  2. Will the world be able to support the numbers of people that you project? What problems could these greater numbers of people cause? What could be done to avert those problems? Do you think that anything will be done before there is some kind of worldwide crisis?

(In mid-1995, the world population was 5.7 billion and growing at 1.5% per year. Those figures led to projections, as in Exercise 9, of 8.3 billion for 2020 and 11.1 billion for 2040. The corresponding growth rates for the groups of Exercise 10 were 0.2%, 2.2%, and 1.1%, which led to projections of 8.9 billion for 2020 and 12.7 billion for 2040.)