One of the most important numbers of the sustainability equation is the human population.
“There must be some kind of limit to how many people can live on this planet. It’s just increasing Left, Right & Centre! Right?
Humans are good at picking instincts, and one of the most favourite instincts of humans is – The Straight Line Instinct!
The false idea that the world population is just increasing. The word ” Just” is the misconception.
The world population is increasing. Very fast. Roughly a billion people will be added over the next 13 years. That’s true. That’s not a misconception. But it’s not just increasing.
The ” just ” implies that if nothing is done, the population will just keep on growing. It implies that some drastic action is needed in order to stop the growth. That is the misconception & it is based on the same instinct – “The Straight line instinct”
There are 2 billion children in the world today, aged 0 to 15 years old. How many children will there be in the year 2100, according to the UN
a. 4 billion
b. 3 Billion
c. 2 Billion
Ans : c ~ 2 Billion
The same number as today.
The below graphs show the world Population since the year 8000 BC. That’s when the agriculture was invented.
World Population from 8000 BC to Today
8000 BC = The Total Population was roughly 5 million spread all over the world.
This number increased only slowly for almost 10000 Years, eventually reaching 1 billion = in the Year 1800.
Then something happened, the next billion was added in only 130 years
Another 5 billion were added in under 100 Years.
People do get worried when they see such a steep increase – it looks like it is just increasing & at a very high speed.
The perceived world Population into the future is given below.
Our brain functions like that, but our straight line intuitions are not always a reliable guide in modern life.
When a baby is born average height is 19.5 inches long. In the first 6 months, a healthy baby grows to 26.5 inches. An impressive growth of 7 inches, but also scary .
Look at his growth chart. Showing an intuitive straight line into the future.
With that logic the child will be 60 inches in his 3rd B’day. By his 10th b’day he will be 160 inches- over 13 feet!
The straight line intuition is obviously wrong in this case.
Now coming back to the data of World Population,
Actual World Population : UN future forecast
The population in 2017 was 7.6 B, and yes, it’s growing fast. Still, the growth has already started to slow down, & the UN experts are pretty sure it will keep slowing down over the next few decades. As per them, the curve will flatten out at somewhere between 10 and 12 billion people by the end of the century.
Source : Factfulness