The planet’s population has quietly crept past the 7.5 billion mark – a milestone that means there are now three times as many people on Earth as there were in 1950. 1. The world population is increasingly growing faster and faster (scarily fast) 2. Africa is currently doing most of the growing (highest birth rates) 3. Increasing urbanisation everywhere. World population blowout
If you have an hour, this is a great video! He's a statistician rather than just a person with an opinion. There are more condensed versions, but if you want details and facts, this one's the best. Also, the population isn't growing faster and faster: Even if you speak in absolute terms rather than relative, it's still not true (couldn't find a better graph):
Even so.... going from 3 billion to 4 billion to 5 billion to 6 has been getting faster and faster.... Once Africa's birth rate slows down, then I think the speed of the world population growth will slow. Overall, the world's population is still growing though.
W Why would you think that Africa's birth rate will slow? With industrial development comes better access to modern medicines, so lower mortality rates overall. Longer living populations with a high disregard for birth control? Perhaps better education and access to prophylactics will help, but I'm not convinced. The problem I have with those charts above, is that the forecast data from 2010 onwards is purely speculative. If you go back to early 1900s the long-term absolute growth in millions of people is actually somewhat steady. e.g. 3b ppl x 2% growth = 60M ppl / yr then 50 years later the population has doubled, and the growth rate has halved.. 6bn people x 1% growth = 60M ppl / yr Don't kid yourselves.. the world population is still growing, and as we keep developing better medicines and distributing them to the developing world... it will keep growing.
Because that's the pattern that's been observed in essentially all countries (most notably Bangladesh) as they've developed (and yes, I know that Africa is not a single country). And it can already be observed across parts of Africa now.
Interesting, thanks for that. I agree that 2 countries don't make a continent, but the trends are similar enough. Also interesting is that even though the countries shown are in different phases of development, all countries apart from the US, seem to decline at a similar rate of change in the last 50 years. I wonder what is driving that?
Indonesia is another dramatic example. Birth rate plummeted from 5-6 to less than 2 in a generation. Modern Medicine counter intuitively makes societies breed less.
Take an hour and watch the video that I posted above. Population statistics might sound boring, but it's actually much more interesting that I would have ever expected. The only thing is that he's a little bit more positive than I am, but all in all, I think it's a fantastic summary.
Lower birth rates are pretty much conclusively linked to economic development. People in poor countries have more children because these children allow them to make more money as they will also be working. In developed countries, there is also a much lower risk of children dying in infancy or a very young age from preventable causes which again, means the parents have less children. This has been seen everywhere - it's nothing to do with "disregarding" birth control. The debate over population also conveniently absolves countries like Australia of any responsibility. The average person in Australia has the same environmental footprint as 3 people in say France. Maybe we can look at how we, with all the education, development and resources at our finger tips, can reduce this rather than worrying about some poor third world family that consumes a few cups of rice and a light bulb.
While I agree with the premise of your first paragraph, my comment re: disregarding birth control was based on personal observations in my travels/work projects in developing nations and discussions with friends who've worked/volunteered in aid agencies. Not on actual data analysis, nor digestion of published studies. Additionally I think that viewing birth rates in isolation from mortality rates is pointless if you're trying to understand population growth.. I'm going to try and carve out some time to watch @spludgey 's video.. this subject has piqued my interest now. I didn't think we actually got into environmental impacts.. that was all you.. Australia is a difficult one, because we've all become somewhat entitled to our "space". We don't live on top of each other like they do in Europe, or right next door to each other like in the US.. Aussies have a population v distance v infrastructure problem to solve too..
As nations develop people tend to have less kids. Also the rise of automation deems humans more useless, we may naturally kill ourselves out in the long long run. Everything throughout history always seems to work itself out with the advancement of technology being the main solutions.
It's all about women. As a country develops women are freer to go study and with education comes more rights and control over when they have kids etc....As a result couples have less children later in life and the birthrate drops.
Yep. Agree. It's about women's education and having control over their own lives. I'd say they have less children early in life.
Totally agree. Its a bit subjective to plot but a very strong correlation between a country's overall economic prosperity vs. level of women empowerment.
Current net growth is something like 1 million every 4.5 days. I'll have to watch the Youtube video above, but while the rate may be dropping, just like on a million dollar property vs a 100k property when the numbers are already high the rate has a much larger impact. While the birth rate today (globally) may be nearly 1/2 that of 1950, it's well and truly negated by the fact that there is 7.5 Billion now and only 2.5 Billion back then. Add in health advances and far greater life expectancy and it gets worse. As we continue to breed like a virus the inverse relationship to other species (not counting domesticated) to human numbers increases. The figures are dead set scary. The idea supported by govco's that we need more people to support more old people, due to living longer and also to a degree lower birth rates in some areas is a ponzi scheme. These new people will live longer again and so on.
I dont believe the slowdown will be as pronounced as the analysts say. Yes, growth rate is declining. But is it too late? 7.5 billion today and projections are it will hit 10 billion this century. As more people urbanise and modernise, energy and resource consumption will continue to soar.
Not really, the more urban you live, the smaller your carbon footprint will actually be. However, I do agree with you that it's too late to avert horrific environmental impacts.
