To date, we have increased our consumption of ecological resources and population (yellow).
Our future depends mostly on how much more we consume, leading to one of the following outcomes.
- We kill too many of the creatures that keep Earth habitable. Our population peaks, and either:
- The population drops, the biosphere recovers, and we are able to stabilize consumption at a sustainable level (purple). Note that purple merges with green.
- We are unable to stabilize consumption at a sustainable level and our population crashes (orange)
- Consumption gets so high that the world becomes uninhabitable and our population crashes (red)
- We quickly reduce consumption, let the biosphere recover, and maintain consumption at a sustainable level (green).
If we had a minimally functional, sustainable global society, we would be on the dotted blue path.
Life expectancy (Lifespan) is shown here for each option.
In all cases, it will decrease. The main difference between the options is whether or not it will be accompanied by a decrease in population.
The likely timing for each of the options is shown here.
Consumption over time is shown here.
The temperature above the preindustrial level varies as roughly the cube of consumption.
When consumption decreases, this temperature difference is likely for many years to continue increasing or, at best, remain at its highest level (shown here) before falling to zero.
Temperature over time will either stay constant (as shown) or increase after consumption stops increasing. It will then gradually fall to a level corresponding to consumption.