Tomorrow’s humanity is a geographical map of the future to orient oneself in the world to come through the lens of the demographic developments and population flows that will characterize it.
Paul Morland shows us how demography is the best perspective from which to observe the changes in our societies and our economies, and he does so through ten numbers, ten data points from which to observe the change. If on the one hand in West African countries the diminishing of infant mortality, accompanied by the high birth rate, will generate the next demographic explosion, in European and East Asian countries – emblematic cases are Italy and Japan – we will increasingly assist to a progressive aging. The economic development of countries now considered “poor” and the increase in the level of education and the emancipation of women will produce a pervasive birth rate, which could halt (if not reverse) the exponential growth in the number of individuals on Earth. Is it a good thing? Is it bad?
These changes are not just figures, graphs and diagrams: they directly influence the availability of resources and the environmental health of the planet, but also on culture and politics, on religion and education, on laws and ethics. If we learn to predict the world of tomorrow we can orient our personal choices based on the shape we want it to have; because the fate of humanity in the future depends more than ever on what we do today.
