Overpopulation Project - In 1800, the world’s population was 1 billion, but in 2022 we exceeded 8 billion and are now growing by about 80 million a year. At the same time species and ecosystems are declining and disappearing through our over-exploitation: more than one in four of 150,000 reviewed species are threatened, half of which are vascular plants. Among 71,000 animal species studied, almost half are decreasing, only 3 percent are increasing. And it goes fast. Since 1970, populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined on average about 70 percent. The reasons are many. Overexploitation in forestry, hunting and fishing. Agriculture and livestock farming over expanding areas. Infrastructure and buildings such as housing, industries, roads and mines. Our spread of invasive organisms.
Species usually decline because we take over and wipe out their habitats – natural ecosystems and environments to which they have long adapted through evolution. These days habitat destruction happens mainly in the tropics, but also in Europe. There, plants and animals are decreasing in parallel with increasing population density and consumption, as the ecologist Trevor Beebee shows in his current book “Impacts of Human Population on Wildlife” (2023).
Another threat to biological diversity is climate change, its two main driving forces being increasing population and consumption, according to the IPCC’s major report of 2022. The rich world’s high consumption of course needs to be reduced, which is often highlighted in the environmental debate.. On the other hand, the extremely destructive consequences of population growth for biological diversity and sustainability are rarely or never discussed...
In 2017, thousands of international researchers pointed out in a “Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” the need to stabilize our population. And in his substantial overview, Beebee (2023) shows that “overpopulation is at least as much a rich as a poor country problem”. Efforts are required from all countries. A new report shows that we have wiped out most of the Earth’s large land mammals, reducing them to a tiny fraction of the richness before our increased accelerated (through fossil energy, medical advances, better food and longer life). In biomass we now completely dominate among the Earth’s remaining land mammals (see figure). Is our massive expansion, to the detriment of other species, ethically justified?
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You can watch China's population decrease on Worldometers. It's population is going to half, and it has already started downward. Taiwan's and Korea's populations are going down by at least 1/3. India's fertility rate is about 1.6 children per woman; well below the 2.1 needed to maintain population.
The only thing maintaining the population in the US is immigration. There are 59.4 MM kids aged under 15. There are 68.2 people aged 20 to 34. Even if we excluded the covid decrease and look at those aged 5 to 19; that number is 62.5MM. That's over an 8% decrease from one 15-year cohort to the next.
Nearly every country in Europe is decreasing in population.
The only continent that is increasing in population is Africa.
One projected global population over the next few hundred years is 2BB.
The UN has been decreasing it's maximum population; and population experts says they haven't gone far enough. In fact the low fertility prediction of the UN puts the 2100 population around 7BB. We are going to top out in 9BBs and then fall. Once generation X is gone, we'll be well on our way to a smaller population.
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