How will we survive when the population hits 10 billion? | Charles C. Mann 

It's telling in the part where he says, "We think we're special, but it's much worse than that", then everybody laughs. You'd think a statement like that would silence everyone, but the irony is we do think we're so special that our individual preservation will always come before a globalised effort to make the changes we need.

To me, the solution has always been obvious: educate people. It has been shown that the more educated people are, the less kids they have; the more educated they are, the more money they make and the more aware they are of human problems, and therefore the more willing they are to help solve them.

When I visited friends in the Philippines I was shocked when I had to shower with a bucket of cold water. There was no shower head, only a faucet. I squatted and lathered the sponge and washed, I then used the water to rinse. For my 2 weeks there this was how I bathed and I actually felt really bad about how I showered in the USA and how wasteful it was. I would have stood under a shower of running water, wasting gallon after gallon of water with the music playing for 15 minutes. It made me realize there are other ways to live which are less wasteful. Today I use a restrictor on the showerhead and I play George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and I am in and out of the shower before the song ends (less than 3 minutes).

I love his energy. His sense of urgency, it’s refreshing yet scary. Very good speaker.

Thanos wants to know your location

We somehow hittin 10 billion but I can't get a text back

It's 2019,.... to you who reads this in 2050,... good luck with the petri dish!

When people can acknowledge their neighbor or even a coworker, we'll get there. Forget a text message and smart phones, people still need to share ideas verbally

Heartbreaking, frustrating, makes me cry out of frustration... We have got so much potential as a species, we could build such efficient and wonderful global communities, if we would just help each other reach our fullest potential instead of fighting each other over BULLSHIT.

The simple answer is this: If we go on living the way we do, we probably aren't going to get to 10 billion.

I'm 43 years old now... never married ... No kids .... You're welcome oh and the main reason? Brace yourselves .... Cuz I've never felt that I could honestly afford to have kids

It's like I've always thought: the proper approach is ALWAYS in the middle, and doesn't lie (or even exist) in the extremes.

People would protest and share knowledge if they saw the problems in this video as greater than their own personal troubles. No one has time to go to the streets to fight for nuclear energy when they're struggling for enough money, a loving partner, good friends, having time to relax, being skilled at something, getting rid of personal addictions... Until we get better at solving personal problems at a global scale, we won't care about the bigger picture. Universal basic income seems like a good start to free up some personal energy to devote to bigger matters. This might not work either, as it seems like we'll just keep comparing ourselves to each other and finding new personal worries to spend our energy on. Maybe we should study the mindsets of people who made change on a greater scale, and try to create conditions that foster those mindsets on a massive scale.

Legend has it, he only blinked once during the whole speech.

TED Videos should be mandetory in school - also discussing them afterwards

The world will reach 10 billion people that we won’t be able to support. Corona virus : hold my beer.

*_Thanos will save us_*

Its obvious, the rich few will have everything and protection while the poor die of hunger. Thats how humanity works.

*Use condoms simple as that* And good quality condoms so they don't leak like water pipes.

“The odd chunk of Tobler-roh-knee”

Combining science with indigenous knowledge (reciprocity). And understanding that nature rewards symbiosis. That is key.

Can someone disliked this video explain why? This is a good, informative speech that gives us awareness of problems that over population causes. Everyone thinks they are exception, having a few kids in their family doesn't matter at all, but it can actually add up to the world population cricis, resource depletion and those kids are the ones who'll finally suffer.

I've totally figured out that I'm a prophet!! Thank God!

You're a great writer sir! -- I really enjoyed that, Mr. Mann :):)

My family stoped using plastic bags, lowered water and power usage, moved to a vegetarian diet and each day we do a little more. We take small steps and will keep making them. We all need to care less about our selfs and more about what’s around us.

The fact is we’re human and we plan for today and not tomorrow

The basic economic principle still reigns; human wants are unlimited and our resources, in the end, are limited.

Thanos:this sounds like my type of Job

45 yrs. female and having no kids my greatest contribution to society.

I'm honestly surprised he didn't talk about vertical farming, desertification, livestock population, or space colonization

I was waaaay too high to watch this TEDTalk...

RU-vid is saving the planet by suggesting videos like this and educating people

if we can reach 10.000.000.000, can everybody get an achievement badge?

What a wonderfully well delivered talk... One of the best talks ever..

I can’t wait till we hit 20 billion in 2100

Thank you Charles C Mann, once again for a brilliant and exquisitely narrated analysis of our imminent demise.

Really good talk. "Safeguard the biome".

The planet has this, it is currently in the process of correcting the problem.

Why does this have only 1/2 a million? Share this now! This is exactly what he was saying, people need to be aware of the edge of the Petri dish and the solutions we need to push for.

Lovely talk and we need to start rain water harvesting on individual home and society basis by building inverted Wells. Turning as much of the arid land into forest will also help but water infrastructure is the basis of everything.

Our "petri dish" is Mother Eath, and we try to leave it and learn about the cosmos... but in the end it's futile. If we don't have tech to create wind farms, non-leaky pipes and stable nuclear plants... How can we possibly survive in outer space for extended time?

Truly a great speech that needs to be heard by all, we need to work together as a global force

"What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us.... In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race." - Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (200AD)

The "Protozoa in the Petri Dish" image sticks with me. In 1930, the Global Population hit two billion for the first time. We are on track to hit eight billion, by Jan 15, 2023, or less than 8 months from now. So in less than 100 years, the World's Pop will have increased by a factor of FOUR. Seems we are bumping up against the edge of the Petri Dish.

This is a fantastic talk. Everything he says is so good, so accurate. One thing Mr. Mann says a few times is "we aren't special". We are bound by the laws of nature/physics/chemistry. Something like 98% of species on our planet go extinct. We are not special. We know what to do but we don't do it because we can't do it. We are, statistically speaking, far more likely to go extinct as a species than not. I re-watched The Age of Ultron a couple of weeks ago, please bear with me this really will make sense. I had forgotten the ending when The Vision confronts Ultron. Ultron tells The Vision that we are a doomed species. The Vision says of course we are but that makes us no less beautiful. That is profound. We are doomed and how lucky are we as a species to have had our "Time in the Sun"? It doesn't make something less beautiful just because it doesn't last.

Yer a wizard, Harry!

10 Billion by 2050. Living on this planet will be a nightmare.

In the last hundred years there have been less wars and conflicts than compared to the entire history of humanity. It is no coincidence that the population is high.

Thank You, reminds me of what my late husband (a biologist) often spoke of ... except he would give a solution . Population control and stabilization ... thing is he never felt we would pull it off ... Love & Peace

cities are new, we need to have trees and plants around us, it feels good and keeps us from suffocating on our own wastes

Not having kids is my contribution. Stopping the bloodline right here! :-D

10 billion huh? Carona virus: Hold my death toll

2 kids per family rule and those families that break the rule enter into a battle royal style competition on Saturday nights.

tbh japan may be the one to save us all with break throughs in technology I mean think about it, they're an island. They've been isolated for a loooooong time before the 19th century and they did perfectly fine and now that they have so many people in such a packed area, they're developing new ways to handle and deal with it and some of them are pretty good, guess time will tell.

The interesting part comes in when some of our species have the technology to escape the petri dish. So the conclusion would be that maybe its not the smartest to think you can stem what most of the species is doing and instead figure out how to refine our consumption into an escape plan like those at the top of their industries most likely have thought about.

Thank you Charles Mann. I feel like you speak for me, and for biologists.

Wait, so Tokyo is the only megacity that's potentially not a cesspool of corruption? I would love to hear more about that.

Brilliant, very interesting to listen to. I hope he writes many more articles,gives speeches and strives towards changing peoples minds. People with such a clear understanding and ability to explain it clearly to laymen in a succint and calm,friendly way, have chances to change peoples minds, much more than angry defenders of each side.

this guy spits out information so fast my ISP must have updated me to fiberglass.

The last 2 minutes. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Some good points like: work together, but he missed out on the human capacity to evolve in their belief system. Sure the stats don't look good but e.g. there is a move towards vegan nutrition (about the best thing people can do for the planet) despite developing countries flirting with a new, much more carnivorous diet. I have seen quite a few changes in the materialist city where I live - (nutrition, food-sharing, second-hand initiatives etc). The biggest mistake to make is to react (to what other people do) rather than act (take own initiative in what you believe is right). It is called empowerment and it is far more liberating than the genetic fatalist materialist worldview which is either used as an excuse by many or is simply a distorted picture that we have been brought up to believe. I know which path I am going and would prefer to die following it than settle for passivity and fatalism - with the latter we might as well die now. The wizzards have failed to understand that we have an inner technology that is far more important to develop than the external high energy-cost solutions they propose

Since when was it pronounced "Tobloro-nee"?

love this talk! great job

Was a quite difficult talk to follow, the speaker has a particular accent , i wouldn’t make it without subtitles, but was he was talking it is really important to understand, the promo le need to now about the future of humanity, i completely agree about wizards and prophets working together, taking the best of us. for me the “wizards” have a great trust in humanity, i agree with people stop wasting water an food and prophets are giving us a short term solution what should we do? Taking the best of both? what is the best of each one? Whatever, future is hard to understand

Less procreation. Humanity should focus on 4 billion by 2118, 3 billion by 2150. Quality is better than quantity, the first global singularity should be the plan for reduced procreation world wide.

Too many humans spreading across the earth like a disease destroying everything. People should need a license to have children . One child per person for self replacement value. No more than that

The video was pretty interesting, I was surprised by the sudden explosion of human inventions and creativity. Beyond that it was sometimes complicated to fully understand… he often repeated the same things and never paused. Good luck following the whole video. I think that we need to find a balance between the wizards and the prophets to have our world in our hands and be able to handle the 10 billion people in 2050.

More people use more of EVERYTHING the earth has to offer. Eternal Growth using less is a minor slow down not a solution.

I am so happy he bought this out to the world

"How will we survive when the population hits 10 billion?" COVID-19: Well, you won't have to worry about that happening anymore chief.

Feeding them isn't the problem. The problem is that we are DESTROYING our resource base at an incredible rate, and everything will stall out and crash in the next decade or two.

had to grin understanding that we land on the list of endangered animals, since the number of us being alive is too great.

wow this is amazing

You’re a wizard, Harry 🧙‍♂️

A good example of a person that would like to play Thanos or to scream his despair: however I never thought that Dexter was such a good speaker.

Ying-☯.. Whether you're right or left, you still live in both worlds as one. If we split the world directly in half, giving Left and Right their entire own hemisphere, they would both destroy themselves and the other side with them. Who would be first?.. I don't know, but together we protect each other from each other, and by doing so we are forced to give ourselves more in-depth insight to the core problems driving us all to our ideal futures. Combining both hemispheres' preservation-to-progression theories, while allowing conflicting pursuits to cancel out our destructive paths and guide both sides to more innovations to perfect the core objectives.

Soylent Green

Fission is a bridge technology while we develop and deploy fusion.

Wow....super superb....thanks for sharing!!

Ultimately, although rather difficult to follow at times - even as a native speaker - I found the ultimate premise of the talk fascinating. I'd never considered human development as an 'outbreak'. It terrifies me to envision the world in 2050 and dissuades me yet further from entertaining the idea of having my own children. Who would want to bestow such a burden upon them? Especially when we seem doomed to fail.

This man, like almost all of the very few others who even dare to speak about this issue at all, cannot bring himself to mention the single most important part of any workable solution: population management. No one has to die unnaturally or prematurely. But we must begin to draft treaties that bind countries to domestic policies that are the best for both their own national populations and the species globally. Begin by incentivizing adoption, no child, or one child families. Incentives would be inexpensive compared to the wars funded by the U.S. and the Developed World over the past twenty years. Smaller families with fewer children will reduce the pressure and stresses on all the vital systems of the planet that make human life and all life possible. Financial and development models can be debated and applied experimentally once these measures are taken. Without initial measures to manage global population, all the models Mr. Mann and others describe will ultimately fail regardless of their merits in the face of overwhelming numbers.

The simple answer is to avoid 10 billion. We must look at ways to curb population growth and bring it back to a manageable level. This gives us more time to become a renewable civilization.

All live together, all die together. Resources decreases, Population increases. Land decreases, projects increase.

Corona being real quiet rn

In 1818, how would someone have ever imagined how we would survive today? And we can't imagine either...about the future. It does manage itself; it's not always pretty, according to our desires, but we survive, just like bacteria.

How about people stop having so many kids? Is it really that hard?

If you haven’t read The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles Mann, gotta check it out. Super interesting

In Wildlife Biology, Carrying Capacity is the populational limit a given species can achieve within a specific habitat. Once the population exceeds carrying capacity Mother Nature will regulate that population through disease and starvation. Man as a species is no exception.

I was waiting for him to say something about just stopping the outbreak by voluntarily choosing to stop having children, but not a single word!

The invention of agriculture was the beginning of the end.

Who was the knowledge, willingness and power to steer society in the right direction for the optimal benefit of the people? Noone.

THANK GOD SOMEONE IS SAYING THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Covid 19: may I come in😈

I will buy his book! I have a vision similar to that. Advanced technology helping us create hobbit-like communities. I dream of genetically modified trees, or bacteria, designed to become factories of products that we need, like medicines, toothpaste, among others. The good thing about genetic engineered organisms is that they can be easily replicated. About social structure, the focus on community is not just because of ecology, but also social science. I believe we can be happier, and our moral machinery can work better, in small societies.

Call Gandalf. He knows the solution ! Great speech, without any pictures or powerpoint what usually people do, I could imagine everything what he said.

The world already produces enough food to feed 50% more than currently lives on the planet and every year we produce more on less. Also, what this guy fails to tell is that after 2050, the population of earth is expected to start declining. China, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea and South America are all projected to nearly halved in size by the end of the century. The only places that are projected to keep growing are North/Northwest Europe, North America, Australia and then Africa. Africa is going to account for nearly all the population growth in the coming decades.

I've been to the future. Humans reach genetic perfection and live in complete harmony with the world, even improving upon its life sustaining capabilities. A true paradise.

Make sure you are away from cities and have your own land in the middle of nowhere to grow your own food

Countries need to come together and solve problems, not create barriers and point weapons at eachother. This planet is just something else.

Learn to live in harmony with fellow humans and Mother Nature