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World Population Could Reach Nearly 11 Billion By 2100
vinces99 writes "A new analysis shows that world population could reach nearly 11 billion by the end of this century, according to a United Nations report issued June 13. That's about 800 million, or about 8 percent, more than the previous projection issued in 2011. The change is largely because birth rates in Africa have not declined as quickly as had been expected, according to Adrian Raftery of the University of Washington's Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. The U.N. estimates use statistical methods developed at the center. The current African population is about 1.1 billion and it is now expected to reach 4.2 billion, nearly a fourfold increase, by 2100, Raftery said."
How the hell is the NSA supposed to keep track of all those people?!?!
Unless we can support that much life with food, water and other resources, war for diminishing resources will wipe out enough population before we even get close to that.
I fully expect this comments section to be full of "but what about all the resources we need for..." fears about "overpopulation". Where there's a will, there's a way. The zero population growth people would have us believe that the numbers are very different from what they really are, but the world can produce a lot more food than we do, and with minimal changes, it could be greatly increased.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Predictions of Malthusian nightmares rarely seem to take birth control into account. We should keep in mind that effective hormonal birth control has only been widely available in the West since the seventies. In that short (yes, very short) amount of time it had to become both cheap enough and socially acceptable enough to make a demographic dent. We're only beginning to see the effects but even so 48% of the world's population lives in countries with sub-replacement fertility rates. Immigration props up most of the developed world demographically, but even so countries with some of the most advanced economies, like Germany and Japan, are experiencing a contraction of their populations. Indeed the latter, with its aversion to immigration, faces demographic collapse.
There's a lot of reason to be concerned about pressure of resources as the developing world grows and developing economies advance. But much of the increased pressure is caused by people taking on aspects of Western life--consumerism, purchase of electronic conveniences which become apparent necessities (cell phone, computers, etc), and the increasing use of cars. But aside from stable polities, few things make life more comfortable in the West than birth control. If there was a bit of lag time, and indeed a small amount, before widespread adoption of birth control in the West would make a demographic difference, why should we not expect developing countries to follow suit shortly?
Read a headline from the 1890's in the Tribune when they estimated the horse poop would be 6ft deep by 1920 in the streets. Of course then came the automobile. That's the problem with all these long term prediction models. Things change in ways they never can account for.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Actually 30 year projections when it comes to population are pretty accurate as the people who will be having children in thirty years are already born and hence their number is exact, all that is missing is the reproduction rate, which moves slowly.
This is a common mistake by people who are not familiar with population projections. Thirty year time spans are "short" when it comes to population whereas they are absurdly long for almost anything else.
That assumes there are no epidemics, wars, economic depressions, or other fluctuations.
No, it doesn't. All those have a modest impact on the combined population of the world. I.e. save a global pandemic or thermo-nuclear world war III, those figures will come to pass.
we could easily have another 1918 flu
Easily as in "it hasn't happened in 100 years and the probability is now ever lower with all the latest medical advances"
or world war which kills 10%+ of the population.
WWII, the deadliest global war ever killed 2.5% of the population.