An Approach to the Modeling of Global Environmental Problems

Global environmental problems arise in close connection with problems of growing population. Advances in medicine which reflect success in science and technology have a population growth of unprecedented proportions. At present, the doubling time is about 25-30 years; i.e., in 1973 the population of the earth was 3,5 billion; in 2000 it will be about 7 billion. (For some developing countries the doubling time is about 18-20 years, for most of the developing countries about 100 years). Every year the population increases by 80 million. However, the earth is capable of supporting those 7 billion people. There are enough fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals for at least 30 billion people, if all countries adopt the best agricultural technology. 7 billion is very little, if the resources of the oceans will be taken into consideration. However, these types of estimates are not correct -- climate and the oceans in 2000 will be a little bit different from those which we can see in 1974