報告題目：How many people can the Earth support?
報 告 人：Joel E. Cohen 教授 美國洛克菲勒大學和哥倫比亞大學， 美國科學院院士
報告時間：2019年7月11日下午 2:00-3:00
報告地點：數學樓一樓第二報告廳
報告摘要:
Historical estimates of how many people the Earth can support ranged from <109 to >1030 people. The estimates had widely different assumptions, methods, and purposes. To make "How many people can the Earth support?" into a scientifically meaningful question requires at least 11 basic assumptions. Even with clear assumptions, estimates of how many people the Earth can support depend on interactions of populations, environments, economies, and cultures. These interactions are complex and poorly understood. Hence estimates of how many people the Earth can support are highly uncertain.
Although no one knows how many people the Earth can support, people can do three kinds of things to make life better now and in the future: create a bigger pie (create and use new technologies), bring fewer forks to the table (slow population growth and reduce the material throughput of consumption), and practice better manners (resolve conflicts peacefully, trade more efficiently, and govern less violently and less corruptly). Universal basic and secondary education would help future generations do all three. Education should give children a good understanding of the workings of their own bodies and minds and the bodies and minds of others.
But children can learn only if their brains and bodies work well. Hence universal education requires good nutrition for all children and their mothers. Despite a global abundance of food, nearly a quarter of children under 5 years old are stunted from chronic undernutrition and infection. The reduction in later economic output when children become workers due to malnutrition in childhood is far greater than the cost of feeding all children and their mothers well. Feeding and educating all children and their mothers well is profitable economically and desirable morally.
報告人簡介：
Joel E.Cohen是美國洛克菲勒大學的Abby Rockefeller Mauzé 教授和哥倫比亞大學的教授。他和他的同事使用數學，統計和計算工具研究人口，生态系統和環境。 他的工作重點是影響人類健康的現象，人類與之相互作用的其他物種以及人類環境。最近的例子包括食物網，昆蟲傳播的感染，龍卷風和人口動态。Cohen使用模型來預測未來的人口增長，國際移民，生命以及教育與生育的相互作用。
Cohen教授在哈佛大學接受教育，并獲得了學士學位。以優異成績，獲得兩個碩士學位和兩個博士學位，一個是應用數學，另一個是人口科學和熱帶公共衛生。他一直在哈佛大學任教，直到1975年，他加入洛克菲勒大學，擔任教授和人口實驗室負責人。此外，自1995年以來，他一直是哥倫比亞大學國際和公共事務學院的教授。他還隸屬于哥倫比亞大學地球與環境科學系及統計系。他在芝加哥大學統計系有名譽任命。
他是美國國家科學院院士，美國藝術與科學學院院士，美國哲學學會會員。他獲得過麥克阿瑟基金會獎學金，這一被稱為“天才”的獎，以及古根海姆獎獎學金，日本科學促進會的獎學金。他分享了泰勒環境成就獎和華盛頓特區泛美衛生組織Fred L. Soper獎的成果，以供人們研究南美錐蟲病。他曾在阿根廷，中國，英國，法國和日本擔任名譽和訪問學術任命。Cohen教授獲得了人口委員會頒發的第一個Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg獎，以表彰他1995年出版的How Many People Can the Earth Support? 他還編寫或編輯了其他13本書，其中包括兩本關于普及教育，一系列科學和數學笑話，絕對零重力以及430多篇科學論文和章節。
