CNBC: Elon Musk named falling fertility rate one of the biggest risks to civilization one of the greatest risks to civilization. The billionaire’s announcement came amid growing statistics of child abandonment due to planetary overpopulation and climate change, CNBC reports.
“If people do not give birth to more children, civilization will collapse. Mark my words, ”Elon Musk said at the Wall Street Journal event. As the businessman noted, many people think that the planet is overpopulated and the human population is growing uncontrollably. However, if you look at the data, you will see that this is not at all the case. “There are not enough people,” he said.
According to a policy note from financial conglomerate Morgan Stanley, more and more people are reluctant to have children because they fear they will not be able to weather the effects of global warming, such as extreme weather events and lack of harvest. This trend is rapidly having a negative impact on the global birth rate.
Governments around the world are also concerned about the problem. Some regions of China have introduced cash subsidies to encourage childbearing. Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babis called an increase in the birth rate among the indigenous population of Europe the only way to stop the extinction. And Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that the demographic problem is one of the main ones for the country.