José Sena Goulão / Lusa
Very few people live over a century. So if no one had babies anymore, there would probably not be humans on earth within 100 years.
If, suddenly everyone stopped having children, the World would crumble quickly.
There would not be enough young people to reach adulthood to do the essential work. There would be no capacity for humanity to produce food, provide health care and do everything the rest that we all depend on. Foods would become scarce, even though there were fewer people to feed.
Michael A. LittleProfessor of Anthropology at State University of New York (US), writes in an article in what is likely that the Humanity collapsed within 70 or 80 yearsdue to food scarcity, drinking water, medicines and everything else you can buy easily today and is necessary to survive.
In fact, an abrupt stop in birth is highly unlikely unless a global catastrophe occurs.
On the contrary, people have been more concerned with the possibility of too many people on earth, which would cause different types of disasters.
Today we are 8 billion people in the world. In 1974 we were 4 billion. Experts who study population changes predict that the total will reach 10 billion in the 2080s.
The number of people in the world continues to increase.
However, the rhythm of this growth has slowed.
About 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2024, against 4.1 million in 2004. However, about 3.3 million people died in 2022, against 2.4 million 20 years earlier.
Decreased birth rates
In many countries, women are having fewer children throughout their reproductive life than before. This reduction is more pronounced in several countries, including India and South Korea.
The decline of birth rates that is currently due is largely due to the fact that people choose not to have children or have so many like your parents.
This type of population decline can be managed through immigration from other countries, but cultural and political concerns often prevent it.
At the same time, Many men are becoming less capable to have children due to fertility problems. If this situation gets worse, it may contribute to a sharp decline of the population.
Neanderthals were also extinguished
Our species, Homo sapiensthere has been at least 200,000 years ago. It is a long time, but like all the animals on the earth, we risk extinguishing ourselves.
See what happened to the Neanderthals, a relative close to the Homo sapiens. They first appeared at least 400,000 years ago. Our modern human ancestors overpassed for some time to Neanderthals, who gradually decreased until they were extinguished about 40,000 years ago.
Some scientists have found proof that modern humans were more successful in reproduction than neanderthals. This occurred when Homo sapiens became more successful in providing food for their families and also having more babies than Neanderthals.
If humans were extinguished, it could open Opportunities for other animals to flourish on Earth.
Michael A. Little writes that the world needs to take certain measures to ensure a long future on our own planet. These measures include control of climate change and war prevention.
