Only Enemy

By the year 2050, when I will be 95 years old, there will be 9 billion people on earth. How well will they all get along?

The point is, they'll all have to get along rather famously, if they're to survive. Most of the two billion new people will live in big cities in Africa and Asia, and these cities will need to be functional, which means free from violence and poverty. The question is, as always, how many people can the planet accomodate?

Please remember that cataclysmic disasters are not inevitable. Although conditions now look bleak, particularly with regard to global warming and future climate change, there is no guarantee that the world will end in 2012, or any time thereafter. The human race might thus be burdened with the responsibility of taking care of itself for hundreds, even thousands of years.

The choice of possible catastrophes is impressive, ranging from viral epidemic to asteroid collision to runaway global warming. Shouldn't we, at the very least, prepare now for the possibility that none of these ever occurs?

It'll have to be a highly cooperative world of nine billion, with all forms of competition, including economic, sufficiently regulated to avoid chaotic destructive conflict.

Resources and living space really shouldn't be a problem, contrary to popular opinion. Even water won't be the problem we think it will. Miama Florida currently desalinates millions of gallons a day.

Humanity's only enemy is itself.