 | World Energy to 2050: A Half Century of Decline | The Oil Drum: Canada | The Finance Round-Up: November 16th 2007 |  |
331 comments on Energy Decline and National GDP in 2050: The Growth of Destitution
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I question your statement that the USA will have only 349 million by 2050. The UN estimate is about 396 and the world population council estimate is 419 million. Your estimate gives artificially high values for GDP per capita. Otherwise, I found this a stimulating article, well worth reading. Obviously a lot of work has gone into it.
Don Spady
The UN medium variant projection that I used for all countries gives 349 million for the USA. I preferred to take all my population projections from a single source so as to provide a level playing field at this point.
None of the current population projections will be accurate in 2050, largely because of the unforeseen effects of famine in the developing world and the knock-on effects of massive economic migrations. That combination could result, for instance, in the projected GDP of developing countries being better than predicted as their populations get decimated, while the GDP of developed countries would drop more due to higher immigration levels (legal or illegal)
I went to the UN 2004 World Population Prospects and got for the USA as a medium projection a population of 394,976,000. Is it possible you inverted the 394 to 349 early in your calculations.
It looks like I was using slightly older numbers: http://www.sdnbd.org/sdi/issues/pollution/world-population-2050.htm shows the 349 number.
Another source of population numbers for various countries is the US Census Bureau web site, http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/idbr200707.html. USCB does their own scrubbing of the data. At best this might be characterized as 'untainted by UN political correctness', but it is at the very least a source having different workers scrubbing the data. I noticed from the Release Notes that the former French colonies are now called overseas Departments, and their populations are included in the total for France in Europe. USCB does not do its own data collection on other countries (of course not, only CIA might try to do that).
If there are discrepancies for various sources and for various countries, I suggest one ask whether they are large enough to change the main conclusions. For population of USA, I guess no available population estimate knocks USA out of the well-to-do group.
Hello,
I assume it is not all the former French colonies, but only the little bits and pieces that remain (Martinique, Guadaloupe, Réunion, etc.).
Obviously, Algeria, Indochina (i.e. Viet-Nam, etc.), Québec, large parts of Africa, etc. are not included.
Ciao,
FB
Nor New Orleans :-(
Alan