Global population could peak below 9B in 2050s

This is the paper the post is based on: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;earth4all.life&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2023&#x2F;04&#x2F;E4A_People-and-Planet_Report.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;earth4all.life&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2023&#x2F;04&#x2F;E4A_People...</a>

Comparing UN projections from 2019 and 2022:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=Projections_of_population_growth&amp;oldid=942588474#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:World_population_growth,_1700-2100,_2019_revision.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;w&#x2F;index.php?title=Projections_of_po...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Projections_of_population_growth#&#x2F;media&#x2F;File:World_population_growth,_1700-2100,_2022_revision.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Projections_of_population_grow...</a><p>There&#x27;s a visible shift towards the low end, with the peak now happening in this century, instead of the next.<p>I think it&#x27;s unlikely that the global population will peak below 9bln, but below 10bln in within the realm of possibility, considering that it already had been revised by close to half a billion.

Once again a publication that points to the overconsumption problem of the wealthiest. I think we lack target models to show people what is too much. Carbon footprint calculators are a nice tool for this. Air travel impact always blow me off. I guess « Limits to growth » can count one more validating study.

Here we go again... Everybody&#x27;s ignoring the most basic and evident of behaviours (baby-having age moving up), and this one focuses on GDP-per-person without accounting for differences year-on-year but only comparing aggregated data over a period of time, thus smoothing out actual behaviour of a population. All of them also ignore that women (primarily) are learning how much harder it is to have kids at more advanced age, and that we might see a social reversal to have kids at a younger age again.<p>Let&#x27;s take Germany as a counter-example: their GDP is still growing (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;DEU&#x2F;germany&#x2F;gdp-per-capita" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;DEU&#x2F;germany&#x2F;gdp-per-ca...</a>), yet their fertility rates are still growing too (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;DEU&#x2F;germany&#x2F;fertility-rate" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;DEU&#x2F;germany&#x2F;fertility-...</a>). It&#x27;s not an isolated case, let&#x27;s check out Romania: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;ROU&#x2F;romania&#x2F;gdp-per-capita" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;ROU&#x2F;romania&#x2F;gdp-per-ca...</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;ROU&#x2F;romania&#x2F;fertility-rate" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrotrends.net&#x2F;countries&#x2F;ROU&#x2F;romania&#x2F;fertility-...</a>. Check out UK as well for when a decline in economy does not result in increase in fertility rates.<p>Yes, there is a trend in the developing world for fertility rates to reduce as economy improves, but then in the developed world they start to bounce back up even if economy keeps improving. How is this not obvious to everyone doing these modelling studies?<p>I am guessing fertility rate never stabilises, and major effects like when we&#x27;ll add 12% of the population are surely predictable from behaviour of large nations like China, India and nations from Africa (who are mostly in their developing phase, or fast decrease of fertility rates for urban populations), but these are compound variables and any correlations noticed are probabilistic and not causation in most cases.

I think we can go higher with stuff like deserts covered in glass algae growth tubes. And things like fusion fueled vertical farming are still eventually on the table.

Model code here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stockholmuniversity.app.box.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;uh7fjh52pvh7yx1mqfwqcyxdcvegrodf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stockholmuniversity.app.box.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;uh7fjh52pvh7yx1mqf...</a><p>Interesting kind of model, I would be interested to see how it performs hindcasting. I don&#x27;t know much about this type of modelling but I suspect it is much too simple to have any real predictive power.

i wonder how long before every living person has an ancestor who was a billionaire in 2023

do you think real estate is still a safe investment considering the projection for population drops?

Imagine being alive through peak humanity. Is it us? These sure are interesting times.

What data do they have that supports this argument? The consensus is for a peak a bit higher. Given that 6B, 7B, 8B were all hit at consistent&#x2F;decreasing intervals of ~12 years, it would be surprising if the intervals didn’t get longer before suddenly stopping altogether

&gt;<i>Contrary to public popular myths, the team found that population size is not the prime driver of exceeding planetary boundaries such as climate change. Rather, it is extremely high material footprint levels among the world’s richest 10% that is destabilising the planet.<p>“Humanity’s main problem is luxury carbon and biosphere consumption, not population. The places where population is rising fastest have extremely small environmental footprints per person compared with the places that reached peak population many decades ago.” said Jorgen Randers, one of leading modelers for Earth4All and co-author of The Limits to Growth.</i><p>Btw <i>world&#x27;s richest 10%</i> among the world&#x27;s adult population (~ 5.2bn) means a net worth of about only $140.000; defined as “the value of financial assets plus real assets (principally housing) owned by households, minus their debts.”[0]<p>So, Jørgen Randers talks - almost exclusively - about the middle class in developed nations.<p>If one follows the 90&#x2F;10 distribution through:<p>The threshold in being included to the top 1% is at about $1.15m. Or seen from the $1m landmark there are about 62.5m adult millionaires in the world.<p>About 90% (55m adults) of those have wealth of $1-$5m.<p>9% (4.5m adults) between $5m-$10m.<p>This leaves us with 3m adults having a net worth of over $10m.<p>Following the same pattern again only about 10% of those have net worth of over $50m.<p>Entering the size of a small city: now, there are only about 260.000 UHNW (&gt;$50m) worldwide left.<p>85.000 adults have a &gt;$100m net worth.<p>In the end we are left with a big global village of 7000 adults with a net worth of &gt;$500m.<p>If you look at the wealth pyramid the 1% tip holds 50% of the world&#x27;s wealth. The top 1% is a universe in itself:<p>A country (1% of world&#x27;s population e.g. Germany) of millionaires within a metropolis of mult-millionaires (&gt;$10m) within a suburb of UHNW (&gt;$50m) within a village of billionaires. We tribal humans are simply not equipped to deal with such orders of magnitude in a meaningful empathic way.<p>When I&#x27;m reading this article and in particular that statement I&#x27;m left to wonder: Well, he also could mean the top 10% (-1%); this rounding error is simply the global middle class (2 bn adults) the other 50% wealth.<p>It doesn&#x27;t take much to figure out that in our current wealth distribution machine, half of the world&#x27;s adult population are a rounding error (1% of wealth), too.<p>Those wealth numbers can be roughly equated to access to resources; and when entering UHNW territory: +giant disproportionate influence in setting global policies. Probably like in a small city, they all know each other.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.credit-suisse.com&#x2F;about-us&#x2F;en&#x2F;reports-research&#x2F;global-wealth-report.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.credit-suisse.com&#x2F;about-us&#x2F;en&#x2F;reports-research&#x2F;g...</a>

Educate more girls as fast as possible.

I still maintain that the current (hopefully slowing) unprecedented industrial population explosion - it increased fourfold in just the last hundred years! - was orchestrated by empires to have enough bodies to throw into meatgrinders of total war.<p>There&#x27;s too many people. This is insane. Why isn&#x27;t everyone freaking out. Slow down.