Bridging the GAPS between ecology and human security - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 132

Box 8.1: Ecology's three uncomfortable
messages: backed up by decades of research …
Limits to growth: all populations are eventually limited by some-
thing (Figure 8.1) . There is no such thing as limitless growth, and
many ecologists understand that, at some point, the human population
(Figure 8.2) will be regulated in some way so that growth declines,
which can happen under a variety of scenarios.

Weak limitation Limitation Strong limitation

Figure 8.1 Population change over time, with initially no limits to growth, resulting
in increased population size, followed by limitation, so that growth
slows, and finally entering a phase of strong limitation, where population
size starts to decline
Source: Andrew Tanentzap

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0

10,000 BC 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 AD 1 1,000 2,000

Figure 8.2 Past human population size over time
Source: Wikimedia Commons, EIT public domain