In what year will the human population grow too large for the Earth to sustain? The answer is about 1970, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund. In 1970, the planet’s 3 and a half-billion people were sustainable. But on this New Year’s Day, the population is 8 billion. Today, wild plants and animals are running out of places to live. The scientists you’re about to meet say the Earth is suffering a crisis of mass extinction on a scale unseen since the dinosaurs.
Scott Pelley