According to Elon Musk, the declining world population is the number one issue that the world faces at the moment. The birth rates are so low, according to him, that countries will perish in a short time from now. However, this seems to be not as big of a problem as he claims.
A news report by the United Nation shows up, claiming that this is not true. They claim that the birth rate and the growth of the population are indeed slowing down a bit, but it is nothing alarming. It is steady and on the rise, and it will continue to be so at least until 2100.
In 2011 the world had 7 billion inhabitants, and now after 11 years, this is up by 1 billion. Is this a sign that we are underpopulated? Certainly not. Is it maybe a sign that the natality is falling? Also most certainly not.
Just A Week After Elon Musk Shared His Concerns About The World Population, U.N. Declares The Population Is Set To Grow Until 2100
However, despite these numbers and facts, the world’s wealthiest man is still concerned about the world’s population collapsing. He said it in 2019, he said it in 2021 and he continues to claim this up till now. Most recently he warned about this just one week ago when he stated that ‘Underpopulation is the biggest threat to humanity’. He believes this and many followers of his believe it as well.
Recently, amongst other warnings, the billionaire warned that many countries may cease to exist if they continue with the current birth rates. One of the most affected countries would be Japan. According to the billionaire, Japan may be no more part of the world if it continues with the current birth rate.
“At the risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world.” – the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted back in May.
While many experts claim that the world is overpopulated already, Musk believes that it is still early to state this since the earth is ‘designed’ to sustain a much greater population than the current one. To improve the rates, he even asked his employees to have more children and introduced healthcare and benefits to employees that have more children.
“Earth could sustain many times its current human population and the ecosystem would be fine. We definitely don’t have “too many people.” – Elon Musk replies to Emel Akan. She shared an article stating the ‘obvious birth rate fall’ and backed up Musk’s claims.
However, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs is not siding with Elon on this. They release a 50-page summary forecasting quite the opposite.
“This year, the global population will reach 8 billion people; presenting new challenges, but also new opportunities for humanity. Together, we have the power to create a more peaceful & prosperous future for all.” – The official UN Twitter account tweets.
In the forecast, they have several key points that counter Elon’s views on the topic. Firstly, by the end of the year, the world will have 8 billion people. By 2023 it will surpass 8.5 billion and by the end of 2050, it will be close to 10 billion. The most populous region in the world is Asia, as we know. And lastly, India is set to overtake China in the number of inhabitants by 2023.
Experts see this as a threat of hunger and a threat that fuels crises, and rises in unemployment and poverty in the world.
Another point in the UN’s observation is that there is a great number of young people in the world. Around 2 billion people at the moment are aged between 10 and 24 years.
According to the UN, instead of worrying about the world population, we need to pivot our attention to the 2 billion youngsters. In order to make it a better place for them, we need to focus on improving it as much as possible before leaving it to them.
Many young people are climate activists, innovators, environmental engineers, and awareness raisers, so they are already doing their part in the bettering of the planet. However, the UN asks for even more people to join the cause. They ask for implementing education about this in the school systems and implementing educated young people in all public institutions. Classrooms, labs, theatres, halls, and everywhere where they can be in the limelight. Regardless of if you are a natalist, or not, you need to give your contribution to ensure the world will be a better place for the upcoming generations.
So, while Elon Musk calls for concentrating on quantity, the answer is to raise children that have more qualities. To focus on improving the qualities of the world and to focus on making it a better place for future generations.
Furthermore, Elon strives to send people to Mars. To start populating that planet as well. And that is broadly judged by people around the world as well. Even though it might be a great goal for some day in the future, at the moment we need to focus on the only planet we have, the earth. After we fix everything here and after we make it a better place, only then we can seek to conquer other planets.
Back in 2021 when Musk firstly made his plans of colonising Mars public, a company called ‘Activista’ bought a billboard in front of SpaceX and wrote ‘Mars Sucks – the Earth’. They put the billboard there in order to raise awareness that we have one planet and one planet only. The way we treat it is not great. We need to improve that first.
“What doesn’t suck? #earth.” – the company tweets with a photo of the billboard. “But the way we treat it frankly sucks. And then, you dream of Mars. A hellhole. A barren, desolate, wasteland you can’t set foot on fast enough. Great, we got to Mars. Now let’s prioritize Earth.”
