“It took until about 1800 or 1825 to put the first billion people on the planet.We added the most recent billion in 12 or 13 years.We anticipate two

billion more by 2050.”

“到1800年或1825年的时候地球上才有了十亿人，在最近的十二三年里，人口数量又增长了十亿多，我们预计到2050年地球会再增加二十亿人口。”

That’s Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New York.He spoke¹ February 20th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement² of Science in Washington, DC.So how many people can the earth hold?

这是乔尔·科恩，纽约洛克菲勒大学人口实验室的负责人，二月二十日在华盛顿召开的美国科学促进协会年会上发表的讲话。那么地球到底可以承受多少人口呢？

“In the last half century, people have estimated human carrying capacities for the earth that have ranged from less than one billion to more than a trillion.They can’t all be right.In fact, those numbers are political numbers, not scientific numbers.Because the question how many people can the earth support is an incomplete question, and doesn’t take account of with what technologies, at what average level of well-being³, with what distribution of income, with what political and economic institutions.”

“在过去的五十年里，人们估计地球的人口承受能力从少于十亿到多于一万亿，但不可能所有人的估计都正确。实际上，这些只是政治性的数字，而非科学数字。因为地球能承受多少人口是个并不完善的问题，它并没有考虑到人类的科技水平，幸福的平均指数，收入的分配，以及处于什么样的政治和经济体系中。”

—Steve Mirsky