报告题目：How many people can the Earth support?
报 告 人：Joel E. Cohen 教授 美国洛克菲勒大学和哥伦比亚大学， 美国科学院院士
报告时间：2019年7月11日下午 2:00-3:00
报告地点：数学楼一楼第二报告厅
报告摘要:
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.
报告人简介：
Joel E.Cohen是美国洛克菲勒大学的Abby Rockefeller Mauzé 教授和哥伦比亚大学的教授。他和他的同事使用数学，统计和计算工具研究人口，生态系统和环境。 他的工作重点是影响人类健康的现象，人类与之相互作用的其他物种以及人类环境。最近的例子包括食物网，昆虫传播的感染，龙卷风和人口动态。Cohen使用模型来预测未来的人口增长，国际移民，生命以及教育与生育的相互作用。
Cohen教授在哈佛大学接受教育，并获得了学士学位。以优异成绩，获得两个硕士学位和两个博士学位，一个是应用数学，另一个是人口科学和热带公共卫生。他一直在哈佛大学任教，直到1975年，他加入洛克菲勒大学，担任教授和人口实验室负责人。此外，自1995年以来，他一直是哥伦比亚大学国际和公共事务学院的教授。他还隶属于哥伦比亚大学地球与环境科学系及统计系。他在芝加哥大学统计系有名誉任命。
他是美国国家科学院院士，美国艺术与科学学院院士，美国哲学学会会员。他获得过麦克阿瑟基金会奖学金，这一被称为“天才”的奖，以及古根海姆奖奖学金，日本科学促进会的奖学金。他分享了泰勒环境成就奖和华盛顿特区泛美卫生组织Fred L. Soper奖的成果，以供人们研究南美锥虫病。他曾在阿根廷，中国，英国，法国和日本担任名誉和访问学术任命。Cohen教授获得了人口委员会颁发的第一个Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg奖，以表彰他1995年出版的How Many People Can the Earth Support? 他还编写或编辑了其他13本书，其中包括两本关于普及教育，一系列科学和数学笑话，绝对零重力以及430多篇科学论文和章节。
