If you paid attention only to the ravings of pronatalists, you’d think the plummeting global population is a catastrophe looming on our horizon. Others, like some scientists from Flinders University, who published their findings in the journal Environmental Research Lettersargue that it might not actually be that bad, since by their calculations humanity blew past our population limit a long time ago.
The study tracks global population and resource use over the centuries and finds that the balance between human population growth and the planet’s ability to support that growth was thrown out of whack sometime in the mid-20th century. Before the 1950s, more people meant more of everything, which was exactly what an emerging global civilization needed at the time, as our efforts across a variety of fields combined to create a feedback loop that kept our expansion sustainable.
But then our population continued to increase and our growth efficiency declined. This sent us into the era we’ve been in for a while, something scientists call a “negative demographic phase.” That’s when “adding more people no longer translates into faster growth,” study lead author Cory Bradshaw, professor of global ecology at Flinders, said via a news release posted on the university’s website.
To put it another way, adding more people stopped making things better; it actually made things more difficult, according to the research team.
How full is the earth really? Scientists say there is a limit
Today, the global population is around 8.3 billion. It is still growing, but more slowly. This is largely due to a global population decline, which I’ve covered extensively here at VICE. Population growth is expected to peak between 11.7 and 12.4 billion in the late 2060s or 2070s. After this, there is an expected decline that has not been seen since the Black Death.
The real problem is not the people themselves, but all the resources it takes to maintain our civilizations. Increased use of fossil fuel. Supercharged food production. Massive, highly polluting industrial growth. The scientists say that instead of hitting our resource ceilings, humanity burned through oil and gas to delay the consequences of trying to support all the people we created. It leaves us where we are today, with a system overwhelmed by cracks, ready to break at any moment.
Based on their numbers, the researchers estimate that while the population is expected to peak at around 11 or 12 billion, the actual number to sustain a global population where humans can live comfortably without overburdening the planet is likely closer to 2.5 billion.
Obviously, that’s a number we’ve seriously exceeded and will continue to build on that lead for the foreseeable future.
