Although Elon Musk has many detractors, the one thing everyone agrees on is that the South African billionaire makes a point of honor on the issue of the environment. The latter also co-founded Tesla with the aim of helping to build a sustainable world. However, for him, the climate issue is not the most important issue and western countries are focusing on the wrong priorities.
Global warming is not the priority according to Musk
Indeed, if we go back to 2006, Elon Musk explained that Tesla’s primary objective was “help accelerate the transition from an economy based on mining and fossil fuels to a solar electric economy“without the latter being”an exclusively sustainable solution“. He also wrote in this same article that the guiding path of his company was a kind of “guide to transform transport and save the planet from pollution“.
Tesla is to protect life on Earth,
SpaceX to extend life beyond.
“Tesla is to protect life on Earth, SpaceX is to extend life beyond”
This is why Tesla invested in the auto sector with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. But that’s not all !
The climate issue is not the most important risk that weighs on our planet and on humanity. The billionaire believes that there is a more pressing problem: that of the reduction of the world’s population. A question that mainly affects countries in the northern hemisphere as well as China, as he tweeted on August 26:
Population collapse due to low birth rates is a greater risk to civilization than global warming.
However, even though Western countries produce most of the planet’s wealth, Elon Musk believes that the issue of global warming is still an important and crucial issue for the Earth. All remains of redefine our priorities without removing that of the population, which must be at the top of the list.
A topical issue
A statement from the billionaire which comes after recent data on global demographic trends. But this is not the first time that Musk has taken an interest in the question. He had already sounded the alarm when we learned of the decline in the population of Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong or even that of Italy and the United States.
It must be said that recently we learned that the fertility rate of South Korean women was 0.81 in 2021 compared to 0.84 in 2020. An extremely low figure if we refer to data recorded since the 1970s.
If we look at the data shared by the United Nations, we will reach 8 billion people on Earth by the end of the year and 10.5 billion by 2080the organization says that the fertility rate of 2.3 children per woman recorded in 1950 will drop to 2.1 in 2050. A trend that will continue to decline according to HSBC economists due to better integration of women in the labor market and access to contraceptive practices.
Add to that a mortality rate which aims to increase in the coming years. Experts believe that the curves of the death and birth rates could intersect during the 2080s and 2090s. That implies that the population could be halved in 80 years and that there will be only 4 billion of us left on Earth by 2100.
A question which arises and which is more and more topical after the summer punctuated by the heat and the fires which affected the planet…