The news on the population front sounds bad: Birth rates are not dropping as fast as expected, and we are likely to end up with an even bigger world population by the end of the century. The last revision of the United Nations' World Population Prospects two years ago predicted just over 10 billion people by 2100. The latest revision, just out, predicts almost 11 billion. That's a truly alarming number, because it's hard to see how the world can sustain another four billion people. (The current global population is seven billion.) But the headline number is deceptive and conceals another, grimmer reality. Three-quarters of that growth will come in just one continent: Africa.
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