Population and environmental change

The world’s population has a documented huge impact on the natural environment, to the extent that human development is said to have given rise to a new geological era, the Anthropocene, where people influence their environment at a geological scale. Simultaneously, human population has exploded during the 20th century to its current level of 7.9 billion. On average, the human population is healthier, lives longer, and with a higher standard of living than in earlier centuries. This development has relied partly on the use of abundant natural resources and ecosystem services.

However, recent environmental degradation, including climate change, indicates that ecosystems are reaching critical thresholds and may not be able to provide the same level of support via goods and services as in the past. Speakers from different disciplines will present the latest advances on the interactions between human populations and the environment. The symposium will end with a panel discussion, where the panellists comment on and discuss the formal presentations.

Speakers

• Lori Hunter, University of Colorado, USA.
• Leiwen Jiang, Shanghai University, China and Population Council, USA.
• Eric Lambin, Stanford University, USA and University of Louvain, Belgium.
• Wolfgang Lutz, University of Vienna, Austria.
• Karen Seto, Yale University, USA.

Panellists

• Gustaf Arrhenius, The Institute for Futures Studies, Sweden.
• Wendy Broadgate, Future Earth, Sweden.
• Line Gordon, Stockholm University, Sweden.
• Thomas Sterner, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.