The human species has topped 8 billion, with longer lifespans offsetting fewer births, but world population growth continues a long-term trend of slowing down, the US Census Bureau said Thursday.
The bureau estimates that the global population exceeded the threshold on 26 September, though the agency said to take this precise date with a grain of salt.
The United Nations estimated the number was passed 10 months earlier, having declared 22 November 2022, the “Day of 8 Billion”, the Census Bureau pointed out in a statement.
The discrepancy is due to countries counting people differently — or not at all. Many lack systems to record births and deaths. Some of the most populous countries, such as India and Nigeria, haven’t conducted censuses in over a decade, according to the bureau.
While world population growth remains brisk, growing from 6 billion to 8 billion since the turn of the millennium, the rate has slowed since doubling between 1960 and 2000.
Always good to remind people overpopulation is not a problem when I see news like this.
Our consumption habits are much more detrimental to earth than how many of us there are (most of us live in poverty). As countries develop, the UN estimates the 12th billion human will never be born.
Poor 12th billion mother-to-be. She’ll push and push but the baby just won’t come out 😔
The best way to reduce consumption is to not exist.
The rules and ethics around who gets to exist or not exist are more complex than fucking not being aggressively destructive with the plentiful resource we have.
If you put it on a graph of how many people it takes to sustain the society you want versus the impact it has on consumption, you’d see you can’t draw a line that makes sense with our current way of life. Cut too low and you don’t have enough people. Cut too high and you end up with the same problems you think are due to overpopulation. Run the numbers, find your ideal spot and tell us how much of all this is actually number of people.
Consumption doesn’t scale exponentially or even linearly with population, it does for the most egregious industries that run the world today. The math doesn’t check out, dude. The only variable left is to change the way we consume. We have the economic and technological means to do it, with nothing but greed and cheating keeping us from it, to serve the few.
This isn’t even about communism or socialism either, we are far far beyond what is necessary in terms of capitalistic gains, like very very far beyond. You’re afraid your way of life would change but it wouldn’t really, as the video you didn’t watch clearly states.
And if that doesn’t make sense to you, then by all means “be the change you want to see in the world”.
All your essay is unraveled by just taking a plane and looking down. In many biomes, humans have left no room for anything else besides ourselves.
Yeah, I’m doing just that, by not reproducing.
I mean, most of the earth’s real estate is taken up by industries for the purpose of consumption, not for housing.
I still think that less humans is better. Restrictive birth should be more common.
The problem with this approach is evident in China right now, where they will experience a pure demographic catastrophe where the share of people in working age will go down significantly, meaning their economy will start contracting and people won’t be happy because this will directly affect their lifestyle.
That’s happening in most developed nations, btw.
What if you think humans are the problem?
Then you didn’t watch the video, and you’d be hard pressed to suggest a “human” oriented solution that would improve things permanently.
Easy, kill the ‘humans’
There it is everyone, the endgame of everyone who believes earth is overpopulated
Yes, kill all the humans
Pizza cutter comment
That’s fair, but my objection to having kids is more due to the current capitalist structure than carrying capacity of the planet.
I don’t want to spend my own resources rearing another slave for billionaires.
Where in this video does it state that overpopulation is not a problem? The message the video is conveying, as I’ve interpreted it, is that the bleak, distopian vision of an overpopulated planet is not likely based on historical trends: as we develop as a society, the overall standard of living has improved, fertility rates reduce to a stable or even shrinking population, etc., etc.
The video does not address the current state of our overpopulated planet, and the impact humans continue to have on animal populations, biomes or climate change. None of these things are likely to be easily reversed within even a few generations, and with the current trend, will likely only continue to get worse in our lifetimes.
In my opinion, overpopulation is a problem today, and while it may reduce social inequalities for humans, reproductive rates cannot drop quickly enough to make a dent in the lasting impact our species is having on issues affecting the planet as a whole.
Nuts take, planet is absolutely overpopulated with human beings, 100% undeniably. It isn’t just some abstract number, it’s the farms, fuel, logging, goods, the absolute everything a single human being partakes in or experiences. Human beings aren’t even managing to properly care, feed, and clothe the humans that are already here, and more igual systems won’t address the continuing need to scale into the environment and destroy even more land that nature needs to maintain the biosphere. I super promise we do not have enough even now, and even when the population was 3 billion we were overconsuming irreplaceable natural resources that other creatures were using.
There are more than enough resources to go around, and we aren’t going to start killing off new people to sustain greedy and wasteful old people. There’s no solution you could suggest regarding population count that wouldn’t be extremely short sighted and temporary.
Population is growth is not a unstoppable phenomenon and will soon stagnate. The problem is how much we’ve allowed single human beings to take. We could all live like we made 100k a year even at 12 billion people, if only it meant a handful of people weren’t allowed to hoard and cheat society out of enormous amounts of wealth.
I think you simply underestimate how much a billion is. You underestimate how much water 12 billion people need compared to how much nestle shoves in bottles for free to ship off to another part of the world. You also clearly didn’t watch the video.
Some fun links from the World Economic Forum and United Nations for you:
Global freshwater demand will exceed supply 40% by 2030 and 90% of global top soil and arable land is at risk of depletion by 2050.
Good luck sustaining 8+ billion people in your fantasy land utopia when there’s no fresh water or top soil.
That water ain’t being taken by my fucking shower and dishwasher, and not by yours either. A handful of corporations heavily exploit these resources while giving nothing back. They ain’t doing it for you and me. We could have 1b people and that would just allow the remaining to consume and waste more, and die of climate disasters anyway.
This is the only reasonable argument for overpopulation I’ve seen. We have all the resources we need for everyone to have a great life, but that’ll change as arable and livable land becomes more and more scarce. The solution to this is halting and reversing climate change, or making things a lot more sustainable if the damage we (mainly corporations) have done can’t be reversed. Or just kill/sterilize people en masse if you ask your average overpopulation believer
Technically yes, with perfect or near-perfect management, we could double our population and minimize the damage. But realistically, our resource usage will certainly continue at a rate similar to or more than it is now.
The good thing is, birth rates are proportional to available resources, quality of life, and education; and birthrates globally are already on a decline in non-developing countries. Low birthrates have negative implications on society, but for the planet as a whole, less humans are a good thing
I mean, resource depletion is a thing… I’m not sure anyone can academically honestly claim that there is enough fresh water dispersed around the globe to where it would prevent mass migration.
Right, but that’s not what people are claiming. Our ability to sustain this level of population is completely dependent on complex logistics systems, built around an economical model based on exponential growth.
We could probably sustain a population of 12 billion people with the complicated system of trade and shipping we have now, but that’s assuming the trade and logistical system will remain feasible in the future.
In reality the current global population is higher than what the globe could support without the use of nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer derived from fossil fuels. If we ran out of fossils fuels, or if the trade of these fertilizers goes up in price due to our departure of utilizing fossil fuels… We’re likely to see famines on a scale not seen in hundreds of years.
First off we have plenty of other sources of fertilizer, and while there would be impact on how things are done now with synthetic fertilizer, if wouldn’t be the end of the world like you imply it would.
You’re like someone 200 years ago saying “if all the horses died we wouldn’t be able to travel”. It’s so shortsighted it’s funny.
And of course the entire world is just going to migrate and die of thirst, they definitely won’t desalinate and shove the brine in the environment. That doesn’t fit the overpopulation fearmongering.
We’d have all these problems at 4 billion people, it makes no difference
Not in any amount that could sustain the industrial levels of farming that is required to feed the global population.
If we were dependent on the natural nitrogen cycle we wouldn’t be able to sustain our current population without turning everything into one giant farm.
I just don’t think you know anything about the nitrogen cycle, or how instrumental the haber process is to food production.
Are the rich governments going to pay for the poor nations massive desalinization systems. What about land locked countries, or areas dependent on snow melt, or aquifer?
It’s a complicated problem.
Holy hell this is such a naive take that it makes my head spin. Phosphorus is an absolute essential for life on our planet and cannot be replaced or synthesized by something else. Currently it’s literally running off farm lands and into the deepest depths of our oceans.
This is just one of the many examples of resources that are being depleted and will need a comprehensive and horrendously expensive global effort to be addressed, all while the world population continues to grow and increase in demand.
We have plenty of phosphorus. For many hundreds of years from currently available supplies at current usage. It’s how we use it and waste it.
It’s much easier to deal with the science than the morals of who gets to live. Most countries will soon reach a good enough quality of life that populations will stop growing, but that won’t solve the problem.
Killing off half the human population and spending horrendous amounts of resources keeping people from reproducing is a laughable solution that is as lazy as can be and achieves nothing long term or short term.
I find this nothing to scoff at. At our current rate of consumption, estimates range from between 80-250 years [1] [2], unless we can find more phosphorus sources. In reality, our consumption is increasing and we are trending towards a shortage by 2040. Putting aside the resource shortage, we will need to double production to maintain our current simulated requirements by 2050 [3]. Increasing production in itself has significant climate and environmental pollution impacts.
All of this is to say, this is just one example of the complexity of the human footprint and sustaining ourselves as a species, in particular the challenges we will face as a consequence of overpopulation.
Nobody ever said we needed to “kill half the human population” or “keep people from reproducing.” Please be civil and don’t put words in my mouth.
overpopulation is not about minimum requirements to sustain life in individuals to me. Its about what population the planet can sustain while renewing the resources used each year for each individual in the population to enjoy a modern, educated, fullfilling life. I agree there are little to no solutions for it. I swear though that population peak has been predicted for awhile as just a bit off but we seem to keep on growing. I think we will grow till we crash more than likely.
What have you studied to conclude it will continue to grow? Just your intuition?
The professionals in the video (with sources in the comments) have studied the growth and we’re right on track.
There are more than enough riches on earth for every single on of those 12b people to live a modern life. Which is more than can be said about people living that life in 2023. It’s not more people that made the wage gap.
On the first part it is continuing to grow as of now just like the professionals say. If you mean predictions of the future I just was remarking that for decades I have heard about a peak and leveling off but it always seems 20 or more years away. Like fusion. There are currently not enough “riches” to provide for what humanity is using now even with not a 100% of the 8b leading a modern life that the world can renew. 1970 was about the time the population was using the amount of resources that the world was able to regenerate. Thus the birth of world overshoot day. I believe this year was august second and we are currently eating into next years materials
This is a straight up lie. It’s not “20 years away”. I didn’t even give you a year, because you don’t understand that’s not how the math works.
The 12th billion human won’t be born because there won’t be economic incentive for it. Watch the damn video, baby booming is only proportional to child mortality, which after a certain economic level people stop needed 10 kids. Then the population starts to recede and age. Just look at the video ffs
I used that term in the generic and im talking about articles popping up over time not this particular one. Usually its said 20+ years away. I did not mean they were saying before we would hit it in 20 years but just that they have predicitons about peaks that seem to change regularly as time goes by. I swear we were supposed to hit peak before 8 billion at one point. EDITED - um also I read the article but did not watch a video. Im not sure what video you are talking about but I do use no script and by and large do not watch videos. That being said my conversation has not been about this particular article but about the general subject of overpopulation. Which I think we are. Based on what I have wrote. Which by the way. ARE OPINIONS. As is everything anyone writes in forums.
Absolutely untrue and dangerous thinking, we’ve already done almost incomprehensible damage to what we call the ecosystem and biosphere, and we frame everything in human terms.
Human activity is a major problem, and that problem scales tremendously with population. I’ve watched the natural world decline dramatically in my lifetime, the world that gave rise to human civilization doesn’t exist anymore and it’s bounty plundered.
It used to be everyone understood human population was a problem, now it’s considered problematic to discuss, but it’s more true. I’ve watched the human population more than double, our biosphere is devastated, humans are just one species, and the world lies plundered and dying because humans think they should be allowed to live in major excess to the rest of the species in the world.
You’re swallowing the pill that we need cruise ships, private jets, immense shipping containers etc… to sustain a modern life. Which are all the major polluters.
War and economic competition hinders energy developments and sustainability, which is multiplied by each person. You’ll get much more out of making the live of 12b people more efficient than you will killing half of them to keep pace with what we are doing now, only to end up in a further economic problem and likely to keep growing the population while destroying what’s left.
I’m actually not. I’m anti capitalist and pro communist, I’m still actually aware of the massive amount of farmland and logging operations needed for basic housing and food, I know how long it takes to grow trees, and understand that we can’t realistically replace old growth forests and their natural canopies. I understand how much water is available in the Middle East, Northwest Africa, and the Midwest United States, and the already absurdly unsustainable cities in those geographic areas, I understand climate change and the monumental and existential threat that poses.
I promise, we cannot sustain this many humans, we cannot sustainably produce consumable fuel for this many humans even now, it is actually going to effectively ‘run out’ ( being infeasible and hugely damaging to the flora and fauna of the area )
You must be young and inexperienced, untravelled and in an informational and cultural bubble, it should actually be impossible for you to be so wrong otherwise.
This is so wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin…
Source: Trust me
I find the idea that people actually think overpopulation is a non issue actually a threat to the survival of the human race, the overall biosphere, and the planet.
I’m not sure why this understanding changed, but it’s a Western cultural perspective with the younger generation from what I can tell, it does not reflect reality.
Climate science, and history are a huge passion of mine, I’m beyond certain about this, and it seems impossible that so many people would be willfully ignorant to the point of denial about things so obvious and self evident.
I think overpopulation is a non-issue because I prefer to follow the data over my own intuition. And the data shows that population is already slowing and will peak without intervention.
And I think it’s extraordinarily important to reiterate that point because of the extreme dangers of any attempt at population control to devolve into outright eugenics and genocide.
https://www.pop.org/overpopulation-myth/
The most effective and the only ethical means of population control is a combination of increasing the availability of birth control, providing family planning education, and reducing child mortality. Yes this needs to be part of our climate change solutions, we’re doing this, and it’s already working.
Oh I didn’t realize you were certain, my bad
I wish I could drive home the severity so you could internalize and understand it.
Just because the problem is severe doesn’t mean the cause is overpopulation. Your argument doesn’t make sense.
Tell me you want an excuse to commit genocide without telling me you want an excuse to commit genocide
For Jesus sake, I’m talking about the long term survival of the human race and all species on the planet and you are trying to reduce this to some kind of political talking point.
How do we reduce the population then? Do you have an answer other than genocide?
Of course there are solutions other than genocide, it all just comes down to the timescale available. I do unfortunately think that the situation is urgent now, but on a longer timescale it could look like China’s one child policy, or programs with incentives for voluntary birth control access, maybe even sterilization.
There are lots of ways to solve this that range from completely or questionably moral, to socially responsible and planned. I care about the long term survival of the human race, and the rest of the planet, I could absolutely be talked into putting that far ahead of my own well-being depending on the circumstances.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
overpopulation is not a problem
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It is. Reduce the population to under 1b and consumption is not an issue anymore.
or OR, manage and distribute resources properly and don’t let a very few of the 8b hoard them
How’s that relevant?
My man here is calling for mass slaughter of the human race.