Uncomfortable question: Is the world overpopulated?

[Tender Branson]

Biologists use the term "carrying capacity" to determine the maximum population size an environment can support, and it's a fairly well understood concept there. Of course, with humans it's very different from animals, because there are more complex variables involved in sustaining civilization and we are sentient creatures with the ability to control and forsee future problems. I will say that earlier predictions of human overpopulation have often completely failed to account for technological changes in agriculture, including both Malthus in the 19th century and the Ehrlichs in the 20th century.

The best way to rid humanity of the issue of overpopulation involves urbanization, education and the industrialization of agriculture. Poor and rural countries have large birthrates: children do a lot of work in smallholdings and family farms, and poor countries with lousy sanitation and healthcare (as well as low female education) will see many huge family sizes to compensate for deaths. This is not, as some people imply, a racial or cultural thing: we see the exact same family sizes as you see in Nigeria and Uganda today in peasant families in France and Spain many years ago.

I disagree.

If humans were really intelligent, they'd go back to agricultural lifestyle as it was back a couple thousands of years ago - but with the difference of using advanced technology only as a last resort (in cases of significant medical needs). But to not use it otherwise and focus on art, sport, mental training and craftsmanship instead.

The picture I have in mind here is the village in Star Trek: Insurrection, where Picard and his crew visit and first think the people there are "in need of help" because they are living agricultural and modest, only to find out that they have all the technology incl. the Warp drive available - but are not using it - because it would distract them from their modest lifestyle.

A very underrated movie indeed. Tells you a lot about today.

[Tender Branson]

The question is more complex than our resident negationists believe. It depends on several factors like resource availability, technology development, wealth distribution or the carrying capacity of ecosistems. World population is estimated to be 10 billion by 2050, while the productivity of farming land in many regions across the globe will be reduced as the climate crisis gets worse. Draw your own conclusions.

The new UN projections were released recently and they have revised downward slightly their projections to 9.7bn by 2050 and stabilizing at 10.8bn in 2100, but with steady decline after that.

The reality is that the UN has not captured the rapidity of fertility drops in Latin America, Africa, or east Asia.  Nations with rapidly dropping fertility suddenly see huge slowdowns or even reversals in the fertility rate declines as soon as the UN projections start with all nations averaging toward 1.9 by 2100.  But while we might be at 1.9 in 2100, we’re bound to go lower in between....rates are falling too quickly everywhere.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next projections down to 9.5bn in 2050 and 9.5bn in 2100 (with a peak in between)


My answer is:  no, not overpopulated.  China’s pollution problem has likely peaked and India’s will likely in the next several years.  There will be big issues in Africa.  But keep in mind the African nations with the highest fertility and growth pains are some of the least densely populated in the world.  Many countries can and will triple their populations and they’ll still be far less dense than Europe or South/East Asia.

Africa doesn’t have declining fertility or population growth rates.

In fact, Africa is growing faster than ever before, also in real terms - not just in absolute numbers.

Several censuses (or censi ?) have shown from Egypt to Malawi and Madagascar, that their population growth rates in the past decade increased compared with the decade before.

[Tender Branson]

The African population boom also cannot be solved with education alone in the coming decades (but of course it is the most necessary thing*), because African women who are educated still want to have 4 kids on average compared to 6-8 for uneducated women. So, even if all African women would have a tertiary education, the population there would still explode because of fertility rates twice the replacement level ...

* one of the main reasons why I support a foster child in Uganda with a monthly payment, for a good education.