World Population Reaches 8 Billion (cbsnews.com) 119
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: The world's population reached 8 billion on Tuesday, growing by 1 billion in the last dozen years and reflecting the rapid population spike of the past few decades, with India projected to become the world's most populous country by next year, surpassing China. The world's population milestone of 8 billion people has long-term significance for both rich and poor countries. While it took hundreds of thousands of years for the world's population to reach 1 billion, the world grew from 7 billion to 8 billion just since 2010, a reflection of advancements in health.
As the world is expected to grow even more to over 10 billion during the next 60 years as the U.N.'s population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) reported, population growth is slowing relative to the past, and the U.N. warns that the challenges of feeding, housing and keeping that level of people from polluting the climate will be significant. On the bright side, the increase in global life expectancy grew to almost 73 years, and is expected to reach 77 years in 2050. [...] The global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950 with under 1% growth in 2020. The report estimates that there will be 8.5 billion people in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050 and then peak at 10.4 billion people during the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100.
So, how do we know that the eight billionth baby was born today? Frankly, the U.N. says, we don't. John Wilmoth, director of the U.N. Population Division of DESA, conceded -- when the report was published -- that the day is somewhat arbitrary, but important to mark the milestone. "We do not pretend that that's the actual date and we think that the uncertainty is at least plus or minus a year," he said. That's because the combination of antiquated census gathering in many countries as well as proliferation of conflicts and the COVID19 pandemic, made a door-to-door count difficult, and the numbers are based in some countries on projections.
As the world is expected to grow even more to over 10 billion during the next 60 years as the U.N.'s population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) reported, population growth is slowing relative to the past, and the U.N. warns that the challenges of feeding, housing and keeping that level of people from polluting the climate will be significant. On the bright side, the increase in global life expectancy grew to almost 73 years, and is expected to reach 77 years in 2050. [...] The global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950 with under 1% growth in 2020. The report estimates that there will be 8.5 billion people in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050 and then peak at 10.4 billion people during the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100.
So, how do we know that the eight billionth baby was born today? Frankly, the U.N. says, we don't. John Wilmoth, director of the U.N. Population Division of DESA, conceded -- when the report was published -- that the day is somewhat arbitrary, but important to mark the milestone. "We do not pretend that that's the actual date and we think that the uncertainty is at least plus or minus a year," he said. That's because the combination of antiquated census gathering in many countries as well as proliferation of conflicts and the COVID19 pandemic, made a door-to-door count difficult, and the numbers are based in some countries on projections.
Covid (Score:4)
Covid didn’t even make a dent.
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I think you may be confusing population with life expectancy?
Estimated global excess mortality from covid is 20-30 million so far, which lead to a spike in the death rate. But the death rate is still only half the 140 million/year births per year.
US life expectancy has dropped, party due to covid, but that does not impact birth rates.
Re:Covid (Score:4, Informative)
WWII finished with 20 million more people then at the beginning, in spite of almost 60 million excess deaths due to war.
What about covid, barely a rash on humanity?
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Covid mostly killed those already beyond their childbearing years.
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COVID mortality was around 1% globally (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality). We've been growing at well over 1% for the last 50 years and the growth rate has only just dipped below 1% (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW).
So COVID really hasn't set our population back significantly.
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Long covid is the rash on humanity (Score:2)
Re: Covid (Score:2)
Re:Covid (Score:5, Informative)
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As long as we don't collapse our civilization we'll be fine
Well, thank YOU for jinxing it!
Re: Covid (Score:1)
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This. The increasing population is mostly because people are living longer, so more people are alive at the same time.
Bangladesh is a great example. It went form a peak of about 7.5 births per woman to 2.0 now. Bangladesh is now below replacement rate (2.1 because some people die young) and it's due to improved education and empowerment of women to control their fertility.
Bangladesh's population continues to grow, because healthcare is also improving which means people live longer. It will level off and the
Re: Covid (Score:2)
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Doesn't need to. Every single country that has modernized as either stagnant birth rates or if below sustainability, and every country on earth that isn't modernizing is busy doing so. As long as we don't collapse our civilization we'll be fine
I remember when first coming to Slashdot, we were told how the Birth rate was going to plummet with great authority and surety. Since that was well more than a decade ago, we're heading towards 2 billion more people. 2000 was a little over 6 billion.
I know this is now Clownworld, where strange things and beliefs happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath that we aren't going to collapse.
I suspect that at least the collapse will take care of the population issue.
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It is like distance, velocity and acceleration.
population is like distance
the rate of population increase is like velocity
the rate of change in the rate of population increase is like acceleration
If you throw a ball up into the air, initially the distance grows, the velocity is positive but decreasing and the acceleration is negative. Eventually the acceleration causes the velocity to reach zero and go negative resulting in peak distance. Then the distance decreases to zero and the ball hits the ground.
With
Re: Covid (Score:1)
When we start collapsing the economy will switch from consumer driven to old industrial economy. We are actually seeing traces of that - goods and services are shrinking in some areas.
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Re: Covid (Score:1, Funny)
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Who counted?
Nobody went out and counted noses. It is an estimate.
One way to estimate is to visit a few villages and count the population. Then look at aerial photos and see how much light they emit at 10 pm. Then look at the rest of that country and extrapolate. You can make similar extrapolations based on cell phone connections, electricity consumption, beer sales, etc. The different extrapolations should be correlated. If not, figure out why, or toss the outlier.
If you're off by 5%, that's only 400 million people, so
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Re: Covid (Score:1)
Covid? (Score:2, Insightful)
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It is once you hit 75-80. Can't have you leeching off the system well into your retirement years, now can we?
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That's an interesting way of looking at things. In Dan Brown's book Inferno, a geneticist created a virus whose purpose was to make 1/3 of the people who contracted it impotent in order to control the world population from ballooning beyond our capacity. In the U.S. at least, according to various estimates, 20-50% of the healthcare bill goes toward the last 6 months of patients' lives. (I don't know why this is such a hard figure to come to. It should be readily available) What if someone actually was t
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In the U.S. at least, according to various estimates, 20-50% of the healthcare bill goes toward the last 6 months of patients' lives.
That is pretty various, rather large spread there. Probably quite a few in the low range and a handful in the top then.
Re:Covid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Infertility for 33% of women, ... then you are talking.
But, there already something that reduces fertility of women. Education and financial independence.
Re: Covid? (Score:2)
Re: Covid? (Score:1)
Fertility is already reducing globally for more than 50 years
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Re: Covid? (Score:2)
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Without counter-measures, it would have gone up to something like 5%. In areas where people panicked it could have gone significantly higher. The low mortality is a success for masks, distancing and vaccinations, nothing else. Fortunately the "anti-everything" morons were mostly loud and not very effective at sabotaging the measures.
Re: Covid? (Score:2)
Cue the Malthusians in 3, 2, 1 (Score:2)
1955 - 3.5 billion (Score:5, Interesting)
I was born in 1955. There were 3.5 billion people.
Now we have 8 billion.
I think we have a problem. Just like smart folk have been saying since, oh, a long time.
Come back Thomas Malthus, all is forgiven.
The only country with the, um, balls, to tackle the problem has been China. And it's not gone especially well there.
It appears population growth slows, and even reverses, as countries become rich. The currently population boom is in Africa, eg Nigeria (HDI 0.51).
There is a small correlation between low HDI and high population growth, and the reverse, but it's weak. Religion and economic factors probably have significant effect.
Trying to move to Mars is not going to help, despite Elon's best efforts (though we must commend him for attempting to make a "backup" civilisation).
So what to do?
* We need to solve the carbon problem before large areas with large populations go underwater or become untenable (eg Bangladesh), or we are going to get even more chaos
* we need to work on empowering women in poor countries to control their own birth rates (education!)
* we need effective and cheap contraception to be readily available (for men and women)
* we need better pre and post natal care to increase the survival rate and health of children (and thus reduce the need for "spares")
* we need better old age care to reduce the desire for "children to look after us in our old age"
* we need to get fast breeding religions (cough, Catholicism) to stop it, just stop it (education)
* the massive numbers of single parents (mainly women) is contributing to poor breeding practices (arguable)
So which of these do you want to contribute to?
(Disclaimer - I have 2 children. On the other hand, my [only] sister has none)
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Contribute? are you joking? none of those things are worthy of contribution and most can be done with zero money.
No money from me for fake green or misguided social ideals.
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Or you can play an expansionist game like Elon Musk
His stated goal is to make Humans a multi-planetary species [weforum.org] and get us past the Great Filter [wikipedia.org] or whatever you would call the seemingly inevitable decline of any intelligent species (since they haven't dropped by to say high, or even been observable in any way [wikipedia.org])...
In Elon's game, any decline in population growth is a sign of not being able to continue with expansion into the solar system, and the current rate needs to continue in order to convince Humans that
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Hahaha, yes. We just saw how good his management skills _actually_ are. Twitter basically got killed by his incompetence. Will take a while to die though. What a waste of Oxygen.
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'I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact' [cnet.com] - Elon Musk
We don't (Score:5, Insightful)
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It has a lot to do with access to and acceptance of birth control. And with women's rights over their own bodies.
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Also, many elements of modern life seem to reduce the viability of sperm [nih.gov]
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This. It's wild that nobody is talking about the massive drop in fertility around the world. Reminds me of that Stargate episode with the Ashen.
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Akshully, the opposite is true. [juliansimon.com]
With economic freedom, comes, paradoxically, solving problems faster than they become serious.
And the more people, the better. Both are observations of actual nations over the past century. Hundreds of century-long experiments involving billions of people.
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And the more people, the better.
For who? Let's keep creating superfluous humans because reasons and feelings? Because we've built our consumer markets around a magical eternally expanding consumer base? Because humanity is at risk of extinction? Ego, self-infatuation and lunacy are no good reason for suicide. Although suicide should be encouraged.
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Are you serious? So global warming isn't serious yet?
Progress is being made but seems we're cutting it close to the wire to escape disaster. But you are right about one thing, we're all-in on Simon: https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]
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And the more people, the better.
Only if they're educated and cooperative
also my sig line is highly relevant to this story
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The only country with the, um, balls, to tackle the problem has been China. And it's not gone especially well there.
How so? Yes, it had some side-effects (male babies preference) but it did, to quote Brittanica "the Chinese government estimated that some 400 million births had been prevented."
The exact number has been contested, but independent scholars who studied the question agree in general: "Goodkind contends that birth-planning policies implemented after 1970 avoided adding between 360 million and 520 million people to China's population."
Re: 1955 - 3.5 billion (Score:1)
I was born in 1955. There were 3.5 billion people.
Not here on Earth; I assume you mean where you're at. It still sounds too high but L. Frank isn't here to confirm so I'll just have to take your word for it.
Re: Catholicism (Score:2)
Catholicism
But more Catholic babies means more Catholics. You don't see (many) already born people becoming Catholics, do you? No, Catholics need high birth rates to replace the dying Catholics at double the rate and become a bigger cult than Islam.
Fuck a Catholic today! And join (or don't) the fastest growing cult in the world!
If done correctly, ever fuck produces (at least) another Catholic. Fuck your way to global domination!
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Yep. Essentially religion is trying to kill human civilization and then the human race. Probably unintentionally, but who knows with the mentally deranged. Outcome unclear at this time.
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Yep, looks like it. This will still be a long way though.
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Fuck a Catholic today! And join (or don't) the fastest growing cult in the world!
Don' worry the Catholic church have got that covered. Why do you think their priests aren't allowed to get married? They're the world's oldest sperm bank.
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This is anecdotal...the fertility rate among Catholics in all Western countries is well below replacement rate, and almost identical to the overall rates for those countries. There are some peaks on smaller religious sects, mostly those on the more fundamental side, Orthodox Jews, yes some very conservative catholics, but those aren't even a rounding error.
The world should be doing all it can to implement widespread birth control in these fast growing countries. Population growth is the real #1 issue ar
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High birth rates are a rational response to the inability to support high birth rates. Gotta have lotsa babies in the hopes that one or two will survive.
Not all economic growth is a ponzi scheme. But much is. You can have economic growth based simply on increased productivity, but that is not the trend e.g. in the US.
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The only country with the, um, balls, to tackle the problem has been China. And it's not gone especially well there.
They didn't try in good faith. We know that increasing education decreases birth rates, but they depend on keeping people ignorant. Now contrast and compare the Republican attempts to prohibit teachers from even mentioning slavery... they're the same picture.
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I was born in 1955. There were 3.5 billion people.
Now we have 8 billion.
I think we have a problem. Just like smart folk have been saying since, oh, a long time.
Come back Thomas Malthus, all is forgiven.
When Malthus was alive, human population was ~1 billion. With the additional 7 billion we have abundant and better quality food, better medical care, longer life expectancy, better education, less poverty, fewer wars, and fewer people killed in those wars.
"Smart folks" don't buy into the Malthusian theory because that prediction was based on an extremely limited model extrapolated from a narrow window of data in 18th century England and has been empirically invalidated a hundred different ways since.
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With the additional 7 billion we have abundant and better quality food, better medical care, longer life expectancy, better education, less poverty, fewer wars, and fewer people killed in those wars.
...and everything is awesome and we aren't, in point of fact, celebrating a ridiculous volume of human biomass for no good reason whilst turning a blind eye to the destruction this idiocy has wrought....
Re: 1955 - 3.5 billion (Score:2)
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Africa is expected to overtake China in population in the not too distant future.
However, in general terms, the entire continent is unable to maintain even what the West would consider a substandard quality of life. Due to this, we see wave after wave of migrants illegally coming to Europe in order to seek a better life.
An increase in population by at least 50%, as is being predicted will have the effect of drowning Europe in a wave of being and in the process throwing Europe into such a state of poverty th
Land per person trivia (Score:2)
According to search engines, the surface area of land on earth is 57.51 million square miles. Divide that by 8 billion people, and each person would be allotted 0.00718875 square miles, or roughly 4.6 acres, or 200,000 square feet.
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Unsurprisingly, because they cheated.
China's targets were based on carbon intensity - basically carbon emissions over GDP. In 2009 they were well on the way to hit 45% reduction by 2020, which they hit in 2017. But that was less from reducing carbon emissions by switching from coal to cleaner sources, and more by their economy being less carbon intensive because it was switching from industria
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I think you left out a major one, we need to accept death as a part of life. People are getting older and older rapidly, and if diseases like cancer become chronical instead of life-ending, we will be in for a ride. Not even China will dare touching that subject
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Quick! Nuke China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan! (Score:2)
This will cut world population by 1/3rd and will save us.
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And YES people, I'm taking the piss out...
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Oooh! An upside I hadn't considered!
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The Americans are much more polluting and resource intensive.
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If you're going SOLELY by CO2 emissions? It's a close thing.
Now look at things like particulate emissions.
Thanks for playing.
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That impoverished household that burns wood every day to cook has nowhere near the level of waste output of the average US home, factoring in the factories in China movement of goods etc to provide that lifestyle.
The post above suggests a ratio of pollution level per American been greater than 4:1 c
8 Billion? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: 8 Billion? (Score:2)
Let Them Eat Insects (Score:2)
Don't worry, New World Order has a plan
Who whoo! (Score:2)
Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)
We are fucked (Score:1, Interesting)
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Quite so.
Soylent Green (Score:1)
The Final Advertisement (Score:1)
The very last ad will be for the male replacement that actually works. Then... silence.
Different news (Score:2)
A national news article talked about the birth-rate flat-lining in 2050, and the problems that will cause: Governments and corporations depend on there being more consumers next year (See GDP growth). When that stops, even more jobs will disappear: No need for new schools, hospitals and houses means the entire supply chain will shrink, reducing jobs in construction, maintenance, operation (staffing) and support services.
Re: Different news (Score:2)
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I'm getting old (Score:2)
I remember when the song '700 millions de Chinois, et moi, et moi, et moi' was in the French charts.
Don't blame me... (Score:1)
Stand on Zanzibar (Score:2)
We're doomed... (Score:1)