“It took until about 1800 or 1825 to put the first billion people on the added the most recent billion in 12 or 13 anticipate two billion more by 2050.”
“到1800年或1825年的時候地球上纔有了十億人，在最近的.十二三年裏，人口數量又增長了十億多，我們預計到2050年地球會再增加二十億人口。”
That’s Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University in New spoke February 20th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, how many people can the earth hold?
這是喬爾·科恩，紐約洛克菲勒大學人口實驗室的負責人，二月二十日在華盛頓召開的美國科學促進協會年會上發表的講話。那麼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 can’t all be fact, those numbers are political numbers, not scientific use 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-being, with what distribution of income, with what political and economic institutions.”
“在過去的五十年裏，人們估計地球的人口承受能力從少於十億到多於一萬億，但不可能所有人的估計都正確。實際上，這些只是政治性的數字，而非科學數字。因爲地球能承受多少人口是個並不完善的問題，它並沒有考慮到人類的科技水平，幸福的平均指數，收入的分配，以及處於什麼樣的政治和經濟體系中。”
—Steve Mirsky
