Scientific evidence shows humanity has exceeded Earth’s long-term carrying capacity, placing growing strain on the systems that sustain life and increasing the risk of global instability.

The greatest threat to our children and grandchildren is… more people.

Planet Earth now has three times more humans than it can carry in the long term, according to a team of internationally-renowned scientists.

The human species is presently on track for a peak population of 11-12 billion by the 2070s – four or five times more that the Earth’s biological capacity can support, they warn. The maximum human population the Earth can maintain is around 2.5 billion.

“The Earth cannot sustain the future human population, or even today’s, without a major overhaul of socio-cultural practices for using land, water, energy, biodiversity, and other resources,” the study concludes.

The team, led by Australian Professor of Global Ecology Corey Bradshaw, included the late Professor Paul Ehrlich, who died last month aged 93, and Matthis Wackernagel, one of the originators of the Global Footprint Network which measures human impacts on the Earth system.

Their paper Global human population has surpassed Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity echoes numerous parallel conclusions over many years, starting with Ehrlich’s controversial  _The Population Bomb_ (1968), with the Club of Rome’s _Limits to Growth_ report (1972), and William Catton’s book _Overshoot_ _(_1980). Most recently, the Potsdam and Stockholm Institutes have warned that humanity has exceeded seven out of nine ‘safe planetary boundaries’ essential to our future survival.

The common thread running through all........

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