“It took until about 1800 or 1825 to put the first billion people on the planet.We added the most recent billion in 12 or 13 years.We _____1_____ two billion more by 2050.”
That’s Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York.He spoke February 20th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC.So how many people can the earth hold?
“In the last half century, people have _____2_____ human carrying capacities for the earth that _____3_____ less than one billion to more than a trillion.They can’t all be right.In fact, those numbers are political numbers, not scientific numbers.Because the question how many people can the earth support is an incomplete question, and doesn’t _____4_____ what technologies, at what average level of well-being, with what _____5_____, with what political and economic institutions.”
【視聽版科學(xué)小組榮譽出品】
anticipate estimated have ranged from take account of with distribution of income
地球的胃口有多大？嗯…… “到1800年或1825年的時候地球上才有了十億人，在最近的十二三年里，人口數(shù)量又增長了十億多，我們預(yù)計到2050年地球會再增加二十億人口?！?這是喬爾?科恩，紐約洛克菲勒大學(xué)人口實驗室的負責(zé)人，二月二十日在華盛頓召開的美國科學(xué)促進協(xié)會年會上發(fā)表的講話。那么地球到底可以承受多少人口呢？ “在過去的五十年里，人們估計地球的人口承受能力從少于十億到多于一萬億，但不可能所有人的估計都正確。實際上，這些只是政治性的數(shù)字，而非科學(xué)數(shù)字。因為地球能承受多少人口是個并不完善的問題，它并沒有考慮到人類的科技水平，幸福的平均指數(shù)，收入的分配，以及處于什么樣的政治和經(jīng)濟體系中?！?/div>