Human development, population, and environmental burden: Historical perspective and a peek into the future

Abstract

The human species has continuously progressed in health, wealth, education, and population worldwide since industrialization. A measure of this advance, the Development Progress Index (DPI), is applied here to the world from 1770 to the present and then projected to the year 2100 for three shared socioeconomic pathways. Concurrently, our total environmental impact continues to grow with population and consumption. However, progress has been uneven across regions. While China is projected to outdistance the United States, India is projected to surpass both this century. The population keeps growing, and the average individual DPI-value has now grown enormously - by a factor of 17 since 1770. The environmental burden to sustain the human lifestyle is reflected by the world’s gross domestic product that has meanwhile grown by a factor of 155. If such human progress is to continue apace, the gross world product will be more than 2000 times higher by 2100. Already now a concern, the environmental impact is projected to grow five times larger by 2100. Human environmental impact needs a measure and attention.