For tens of thousands of years, the human population tended to rise and fall without a substantial long-term trend. Only in the past two centuries, with the rise of modern economic life, did the world's population soar, from around one billion people in 1820 to 6.3 billion today and around 9 billion by 2050.
这不是什么激进的对降低人口增长的呼吁。几万年来，人口一直都是有升有降，没有一个固定的长期的规律。只是在过去两百年间，由于现代经济生活的出现，世界人口才不断高涨，从1820年的10亿人口增加到今天的63亿，并将继续增加，到2050年将达到90亿。