The truth about human population decline | Jennifer D. Sciubba

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Ted Podcast, Ted Talks Daily, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With birth rates falling, the worldwide human population is getting older and smaller. According to traditional thinking, this spells a future of labor shortages, bankrupt social security systems and overall economic collapse. Before you panic about the end of life as we know it, political demographer Jennifer D. Sciubba has a thoughtful playbook for managing the new normal – including ideas on the future of work and migration – and a reminder that a resilient future relies on present-day action.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:11.0	I'm Elise Hugh, it's Ted Talks Daily.
0:13.6	What if we're thinking about population growth all wrong?
0:18.0	Political demographer Jennifer D. Shuba challenges us to think about a shrinking world in new
0:23.1	ways in her talk from Ted 2023.
0:26.6	And after the break, he or her vision for a more resilient world going forward.
0:34.1	I'm Alex Schwartz.
0:35.1	I'm Nomi Frey.
0:36.1	I'm Vincent Cunningham, and this is Critics at Large, a New Yorker podcast for the Culturally
0:41.1	Curious.
0:42.1	Each week we're going to talk about a big idea that's showing up across the cultural landscape
0:46.2	and will trace it through all the mediums we love, books, movies, television, music, art.
0:50.7	And I always want to talk about celebrity gossip too, of course.
0:54.9	We hope you'll join us for new episodes each Thursday, follow Critics at Large, today
0:59.0	wherever you get podcasts.
1:04.3	Astronomers tell us that when we look to the night sky, we're actually looking back
1:08.8	in time.
1:10.6	Light from those faraway stars takes so long to reach our eyes here on Earth that by
1:15.0	the time we wish upon a particular star, it may no longer even exist.
1:20.8	I'm here to tell you the population of Earth is a lot like those stars.
1:25.4	In parts of the globe, the human population is already or will soon be shrinking.
1:30.2	I know what you're thinking, and yes, total population is still growing from 8 billion
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.