The air quality in Beijing and Shanghai is among the worst in the world. As much as 80% of Chinese cities do not meet the minimum standard. Although measures are being taken to improve the quality of the air by moving or closing down old factories, Beijing currently has five million cars, which is four million more than fifteen years ago. Many buildings are demolished and new ones are built in their place, which causes a lot of dust. But the biggest problem of all is the population, which has doubled in that period to 20 million. What would that…

Paul Gerbrands Wars are becoming less common in Europe. For a long time, they were a major cause of destruction of everything beautiful and ugly. Millions of people died in the last two world wars and food, raw materials and consumer goods were very scarce. Currently we live in peaceful times, we live longer, we still have children, and we have access to a growing list of products and consumables, more than our ancestors ever thought possible.

Trying to improve our living environment will be fighting a running battle as long as 70 million people are added to the world population each year. Once the mythological king Sisyphus thought that his cleverness could surpass that of Zeus.

What's Next for Our Increasingly Overpopulated World? At seven billion people and counting, the population of the globe is increasing with no signs of slowing down in the near future. With an increase of a billion people over only the past fifteen years and a four and a half billion increase over the last forty-five years, it is reasonable to expect some ten billion people in the world by 2050.