ByXANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR
Published:05:52 EDT, 26 May 2026|Updated:06:31 EDT, 26 May 2026
Earth's population currently sits at 8.3 billion people – but it could crash within the next 40 years, experts have warned.
Scientists say that, in a worst–case scenario, humanity could potentially be halved by the year 2064.
This could be the result of climate collapse, a pandemic, global conflict or resource shortages, they warned.
'The most provocative part of our paper explores hypothetical future scenarios,' the researchers, from the University of Milan,said.
'We modelled what could happen if major environmental crises abruptly imposed severe carrying–capacity limits on Earth.
'Under a deliberately conservative worst–case assumption that Earth's sustainable carrying capacity suddenly dropped to around two billion people, our model predicts a rapid global population decline, with humanity potentially halving by around the year 2064.'
The researchers maintain that this is not a forecast, but an 'illustrative mathematical scenario' which shows how sensitive population dynamics may be to abrupt changes.
But with researchers sounding alarm bells about global warming, recent pandemics such as Covid and falling birth rates, the scenario is not completely unrealistic.
Source: Drudge Report
