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How Population Falls:The Consequences of a Shrinking Humanity
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Ebook
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In the 2080s, global population numbers will start to drop for the first time: what is to be done? by leading geographer and author of The Next Crisis
For the first time in human history, the global population is predicted to peak in sixty years time and then decline permanently. This shift began in the 1960s when worldwide birth rates started falling, and over half the world's population now has fertility rates below replacement level. Dorling argues that current demographic discussions are dominated by right-wing narratives that frame population decline as catastrophic. In contrast he argues this decline as potentially positive, especially given environmental constraints and the unsustainability of infinite growth. A shrinking population would challenge core assumptions about economic systems, housing markets, and growth-based economics.
How Population Falls begins by explaining where the fear of fewer people comes from and provides a progressive, optimistic framework for understanding demographic change in an era when such perspectives are largely absent from popular debate.
Reviews
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An astonishing, rigorous, clear-sighted investigation into the causes of society's existential failure to reproduce itself. How Population Falls is one of the most important books this year
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Dorling delivers a masterclass on how to present the fundamentals of a major societal issue in a highly readable way while also paying meticulous attention to detail, and what issue could be more important than the future of humanity itself?'
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Dorling addresses one of the defining economic, social and cultural shifts of our time. Highly readable; it beautifully overlays the scientific literature over political, economic and social realities. It states, with searing urgency, the need to both confront those who seek to exploit this new paradigm for their own ends. At the same time it offers, a new way to respond to the issue in a way that puts people - and not targets - at the centre.
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Dorling is brilliant at challenging our assumptions and broadening our horizons. His latest book is bracing, humane and a long overdue corrective to some of the most pervasive myths about population trends.