I disagree that it is unlikely.
Years ago, before my wife passed, she saw a couple of somewhat feral kittens hanging out.
“They’re so cute!”, she would say, and I know she meant well, she would put out food for them.
About three years later I was fishing some decomposing dead kittens out of a spot near my house. There were feral cats EVERYWHERE. I had to buy a live trap because they were basically tearing things apart at their leisure.
You chose to avoid the question by stating (without any evidence) that the world will never get to ten billion.
My point it that we figure out what to do NOW, because if it gets to the point of no return, it effects us all.
Mathematically, we can expect one of two things. A smooth, linear approach to the point of equilibrium, or going well beyond that, and having a cataclysmic decline.
I exhale plenty. And I understand alot of things. I am offended that you think my post was hysterical.
The question is not seriously considered by anyone who’s studied population trends over the last 20 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Forecast_of_world_population
One can object to contraception, as I do, but the consequences of it are increasingly global. The populations which are still expanding at preindustrial rates are too small to undermine a stabilisation around 9.5 billion in 2050.
But do you get the feeling that these apparent mathematical analyzes have a pretty poor record of pinpointing that elusive tipping point is, andhave a pretty poor record of predicting anything or providing enlightenment when you look back on them?
Maybe, just maybe, the organism/ecosystem model we apply to rats just doesn't fit right when talking about populations of people. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
Maybe some variables are missing. Maybe lots of variables are missing. Maybe people sitting around with computers predicting cataclysm as soon as certain data points they've identified are met, aren't much different than the guy that gives away his stuff and goes up on a hill to wait for the end.