Is the World Overpopulated?

The UN predicts that the world population will reach 10 billion people in 2057 . At this time, India will be the most populous country with almost 1.7 billion inhabitants followed by China with 1.35 billion, and Nigeria with 454 million.

Explosive growth of the human population

The last 300 years have seen an unprecedented increase of the human population with a growth of 7 billion people. 6 billion have been in the last 100 years.  

World Population milestones in billions

The world population reached 10 million around 6500 BCE and 100 million around 1500 BCE. The billion milestones are:

• 1 billion: 1804
• 2 billion: 1927
• 3 billion: 1960
• 4 billion: 1974
• 5 billion: 1987
• 6 billion: 1999
• 7 billion: 2011
• 8 billion: 2023 (estimated)
• 9 billion: 2037 (estimated)
• 10 billion: 2057 (estimated)
• 11 billion: 2100 (maybe)

Will population growth get out of control?

Already in the late 1700s the British philosopher Thomas Malthus wondered about the Earth’s ability to cope with population growth. He was not too optimistic:

"The power of population is so superior to the power of the Earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race".

- Thomas Malthus, 1779.

Was he right? If yes, what is the limit and when will we hit it?

“The power of population...”

The facts do seem to support that “the power of population” is a very strong one. The world population has been expanding non-stop for 600 years and is expected to continue growing for at least another 100 years reaching more than 11 billion people by 2100.

“...superior to the power of the Earth to produce subsistence for man”

There are also clear signs that Earth cannot cope with the growth of the human population. 

If you imagine the 4.5 billion years history of Earth squeezed into a calendar year, modern human has existed for a mere 37 minutes and have used up a third of the Earth’s natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds.

We are already over-exploiting the Earth biocapacity by 75 percent. Put differently, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.75 Earths to provide the natural resources for our consumption and absorb our waste. And the world population is growing by more than 200,000 people a day.

How many people can the Earth sustain?

3.7 billion?

Our current way of life caused humanity to hit the Earth’s limit already around 1970 when the world population was 3.7 billion - less than half the population of today. Since the 1970s, we have been living in so-called “ecological overshoot” with an annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year. In other words, we are taking an ecological “loan” and asking future generations to pay it back.

7.7 billion?

Is 7.7 billion people the sustainable limit?

A meta-analysis of 70 studies estimates the sustainable limit to the world population to 7.7 billion people. World population as of 2020: 7.8 billion...  

10 billion?

Can Earth sustain 10 billion?

According to an article in Live Science, many scientists think that Earth has a maximum capacity to sustain 9-10 billion people. One of these scientists is the Harvard sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. He believes the Earth can sustain 10 billion - but it requires changes:

"If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people" 

- Edward O. Wilson, Harvard sociobiologist.
We need to change

It’s clear that whatever the maximum number of the people the Earth can sustain, we need to change! If we continue our current consumption patterns we will slowly but steadily use up the planet’s resources. If nothing changes we will need two planets by 2030.

1970: 3.7 billion people = 1 planet Earth

2030: 8.5 billion people = 2 planet Earths

2057: 10 billion people = ??? planet Earths

According to the global Footprint Network, in 2030 - when the global population has reached an estimated 8.5 billion people - we will need 2 planets to support the human population. Imagine how many we’ll need when we reach 10 billion people...

But of course, change is possible!

The UN paper: “How Many People? A Review of Earth’s Carrying Capacity” presents three different routes of change:

1. The “bigger pie” scenarium: Technical evolutions in green energy and materials efficiency and reuse mean that we can get more out of the resources Earth has.
2. The “fewer forks” scenarium: Meaning simply fewer people.
3. The “better manners” scenarium: Humanity (as in every single one os us) reduces our impact on the planet and makes decisions based on the full impact on Earth and ecosystems (complete internalization of costs in economic terms). Examples are the use of renewable energy and reuse of materials instead of throwing them out.

The paper concludes that a combination of all three will surely be needed.