05-07-2021, 05:54 PM
(05-07-2021, 05:09 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have seen projections for climate change in the latter part of the 21st century, and I notice the expansion of deserts and semi-deserts. Parts of the Balkans and central Europe that fall within Cfa (most lower elevations of Bulgaria and Serbia), Cfb (Germany, largely), Dfa (lower elevations in Hungary and Romania), and Dfb become steppe comparable to American short-grass prairie. To put a long story short, tall-grass prairie such as most of north-central Illinois and eastern Nebraska are well-suited for agriculture. Short-grass prairie is too dry for crop-growing without irrigation.
Global warming, if unabated, will make food supplies much less reliable than they now are... and when that happens, Humanity is in deep trouble... with riots, revolutions, pogroms, and wars. Humanity will be wise to embrace Zero Population Growth before then even without global warming, but with global warming it will need 'negative population growth'. Political institutions implode when food supplies become unreliable. Don't believe me? Once the German Army had control of the breadbasket of the Russian Empire in 1917, food riots erupted and toppled the Tsar. People can tolerate many hardships well -- but not hunger.
According to Worldometer, TFR appears to be falling at a rate of 0.1 per decade since 2000 and stands at 2.5 now. If the trend continues (unlikely unless the pandemic & other events will have a bigger impact in the coming years), TFR will continue to fall at a lower rate & we won't reach ZPG until closer to 2100. If it fell at the same rates it was from 1990 to 2000, we would be on track to hit ZPG way sooner than end of this century.