2020/05/06 by Mauro Bologna, Gerardo Aquino · 6 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Energy · #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy #Global Energy and Sustainability Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-63657-6
openalex publication_date 2020/05/06 · openalex created_date 2020/05/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this paper we afford a quantitative analysis of the sustainability of current world population growth in relation to the parallel deforestation process adopting a statistical point of view. We consider a simplified model based on a stochastic growth process driven by a continuous time random walk, which depicts the technological evolution of human kind, in conjunction with a deterministic generalised logistic model for humans-forest interaction and we evaluate the probability of avoiding the self-destruction of our civilisation. Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.