Earth's Human Population 'Exceeds Planet's Capacity'

Climate change as Earth’s population soars may damage food production capacity to the point that a billion people will go hungry. — Nina Fedoroff

One of the United States’ most influential science advisors says that the number of humans on the planet has exceeded Earth’s “limits of sustainability.”

Speaking prior to a conference in Paris of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, State Department chief scientist Nina Fedoroff said that famines affecting a billion people may threaten global food security this century.

The world’s population has already exceeded six billion and is predicted to rise to nine billion within 50 years unless action is taken.

“We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Fedoroff told the BBC.

Her warning echoed comments made last month by John Beddington, Britain’s chief scientist, in which he forecast a “perfect storm” of food, water and energy shortages by 2030.

Fedoroff, who advises Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said that opposition to genetically modified crops must end in order to feed the growing population.

“We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying, ‘Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th century’, and yet that's what we're demanding in food production,” she told the Times of London.

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