Swedish global health professor Hans Rosling demonstrates the past, present, and future of population growth with a “new technology”: IKEA boxes. Global population is expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, but it doesn’t have to continue increasing. Rosling says 9 billion can be the sustainable population of the earth by encouraging green technologies and having the West be the foundation, instead of leader ahead of the masses like its always been. Rosling argues that by raising the living standards of the poor and promoting family planning, the global population can be curved and held at a sustainable level.
Rosling began his career as a physician, spending many years in rural Africa tracking a rare paralytic disease (which he named konzo) and discovering its cause: hunger and badly processed cassava. He co-founded Médecins sans Frontièrs (Doctors without Borders) Sweden, wrote a textbook on global health, and is currently a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Rosling has also argued with many heads of state, including Fidel Castro. Video after the break.