When 10 billion people jump

By Kevin Bloom: The Population Reference Bureau, a United States research and data analysis body, has just released its latest forecasts on population growth in the coming decades. Put it this way: it’s going to get squashy.

In his book When a Billion Chinese Jump, author Jonathan Watts explores the consequences of the People’s Republic foregoing the faraway promises of socialist bliss for the more immediate joys of capitalist consumption. The title derives from a nightmare he had as a child – if all the men, women and children in China jumped at the same time, the world would be knocked off its axis – and alludes to the impact the most populous nation on Earth has on the planet’s diminishing resources...read on