"The figure, expected today according to projections by the UN Population Fund, has come thanks to longer lifespans and the rapid growth of some nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
It came only 11 years after the figure hit seven billion, but amid projections that this 'unprecedented growth' was now slowing. There will not be nine billion people until 2037....
India is now drawing level with China, with a population of 1.4 billion, and is expected to surpass it next year. China’s population may begin to shrink next year.... Beijing began allowing couples to have up to three children last year in an effort to raise a birthrate that had slipped to 1.16...."
The London Times reports.
The rate of population growth is tumbling, even as older people are staying around longer, and beginning in 2087, it is predicted, there will be no growth at all, but decline. I'm looking at this chart and trying to imagine the increasing disproportion of old to young:
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84 comments:
And all 8 billion want to live in the United States.
There are three things in life you can be sure of--death, taxes, and that the Malthusians are wrong.
Instapundit is almost certainly right that we will not cross 8 billion today and world population will start to decline decades earlier than predicted (because too many countries have both an incentive to exaggerate their population and bad record keeping). However, I don't fear the coming demographic imbalances, such as insufficient worker-pensioner ratios. It's a problem we will have to deal with, but I don't see anything insurmountable about it.
I doubt that uptick on the chart is going to happen.
Maybe we'll finally see fewer "coming of age" angst movies.
There is an illusory comfort to be had in large numbers. Billions and billions of people: what could possibly decimate them?
How about a few months without food?
Where does food come from? That’s right: enormous ongoing investments in energy-intensive systems to create fertilizer (and ship it), and grow the food (and ship it), and store the food, and distribute and prepare the food.
No need to speak of other essentials to survival: like heat, light, communications, transportation.
It’s amazing and wonderful that we are where we are. It’s also remarkably precarious.
Future economic stresses and wars: The tropics.
As Europe, Northern Asia, North America long ago flatlined, growth is in relatively troubled countries. See India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc. What happens if Russia, Saudi Arabia, or other fossil fuel producers cut off supplies? Rapid deaths of millions? The worst case scenario is that the 21st century experiences tropical versions of WW1, WW2, Stalin, and Mao.
The industrialized countries are currently too old, too wealthy, and too disconnected to care.
what will that do to the tilt of the kilt of earth's rotation axis? asking for Congress Persons
Global Strategist Peter Zeihan has long detailed the population implosion especially in China which he projects to lose half its population by 2050 with the youngest meaningful cohort between the ages of 50-60. And that's if hundreds of millions of Chinese don't starve in the coming decade as China imports 85% of their food. His fascinating videos are easily found on You Tube.
And all 8 billion want to live in the United States.
=======
solution ===> US [fka China] should become global hegemon [since ballots are printed in China already]
Normally that would older retirement ages, since you need workers to support the retired; but maybe automation will offset it.
Of course, this assumes no catastrophic event (or events) between now and 2087 that might obliterate huge swaths of humans on the earth: a devastating pandemic (or series of pandemics) on a greater scale by far than the still extant COVID pandemic, (the denials of kooks and stupid people notwithstanding); extreme weather around the world resulting from global climate change, (the denials of kooks and stupid people notwithstanding), that may lead to starvation, disease, loss of adequate food, water and shelter, etc.; a great war or series of great wars, including, at worst, the eruption of nuclear exchanges; and other fatally disastrous events not yet imagined.
"And all 8 billion want to live in the United States."
Assumes facts not in evidence.
I seem to recall India's population running a distant second to China's. So India passing China is probably the big news in there.
…and Ann wants subsidize having children so humanity won’t disappear. So which catastrophe is it- too few people being made or too many?
Robert Cook said..."And all 8 billion want to live in the United States."
Assumes facts not in evidence
You take Trump literally but not seriously.
"Assumes facts not in evidence."
5 million have crossed our border illegally since Biden took office. Allowing for some rhetorical excess, I think that there is plenty of evidence.
If Biden keeps pushing Russia into a corner, this problem may solve itself.
Can you see the effect of the covid pandemic on that chart?
The demographic imbalance (too many pensioners, too few workers) will further impoverish and demoralize the potential breeders (who are also the overtaxed workers, and who are already shell-shocked by the Climate Change and Covid shitstorm constantly promoted by the elites and the media). Have some babies? No way. Can't afford it, won't subject them to the cruel fate that awaits. Talk about a feedback loop!
And yet, some believe that the loss of the sacred and cherished right to extinguish your babies, in utero, is our biggest problem. No worries on that front, mate; your betters have far more pressing problems they intend to promote for your "benefit."
Steve Sailer's world's most important graph.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-worlds-most-important-graph/
Per Robert Cook: They don't "all" want to move to Western Europe and the US.
"China is the most rapidly aging country in the history of the world." Peter Zeihan
Keanes (or someone) said...
In the long run.. We'll All be dead.
I doubt that he realized how true he'd be. Looks like, when the drop comes, it will come hard
🙏🏽 Dobbs
After the Black Plague ended, population boomed. Europe thought that the world.was ending, and then it didn't. But as they say, disaster usually accelerates existing trends, and then the trend was up, now it's down.
Great points by many in the comments (as always). Western nations, plus Japan & Russia have been below replacement rate for a few years now, with the US going under for the first time a couple of years ago. It was easy to see why this happened from years out.
Women and men have changed roles in the West. Women being pushed and nurtured to move ahead, forego families for their careers and push in those careers for years until they look back in middle age and wonder what happened. Boys and young men have been pushed back in school and in society and are now, generally, a shadow of what they used to be. Even testosterone levels have dropped precipitously in the last couple of decades among men in Western nations and Japan. So hard charging women are not wanting, or not getting around to having children. Or if they want to do so, are not finding acceptable mates.
As for China, they killed off millions of their own for a few generations, then proceeded to limit babies, then limited them to boys only for years. One day they noticed that they had millions of young men with no partners and no future. At that point the West bailed them out for a bit by sending all of the world's manufacturing over to them. That held things off for a few years, but that cover is ending and China, with over a Billion people, is shrinking. Which may be good as they soon won't be running at a high level economy and feeding all of those people will get tricky, if it hasn't already. They do not all live in large, gleaming cities.
In Russia everyone drinks too much and have for years. No one wants to have babies with drunk men. Except drunk women. Babies get in the way of drinking.
The only areas where people are still having babies are in the Middle East, Africa, parts of South America, and India. The only people in the US having 3 or more babies are people from the Middle East, Africa, parts of South or Central America, and India. Get it?
By the way, Robert Cook is right to bring up the unmentioned of mass casualties due to man-made or natural disasters. Nature and humans both come through with those every few generations. We're due.
Looking ahead, you can get an idea of the future demographics of the world. The good news is, Middle Eastern and Indian foods are both very good. Brazil has the world's best music. And African music is right up there as well.
The first sign of the end of civilization could come as early as next Sunday. If the Lions win their 3rd game in a row, it's time to cash in your remaining Bitcoin and move to higher ground.
Keynes was a childless gay Englishman.
In the long run he was dead. Not even that long a run. About 30-40 years after he said that.
Those of us who are normies reproduce and live on in our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great... and so on.
Just one more thing Keynes was wrong about.
John Henry
Heartless Aztec said...
"China is the most rapidly aging country in the history of the world." Peter Zeihan
Maybe that's what Xi's facial expression meant, looking at Biden made him feel better.
I'm doing my part, but if you think my wife and I are going to have a thousand kids, you've got another thing coming! Snap to it slackers!
@ Robert Cook. I am not a kook or a denier regarding Covid. Covid was real. It was the response to Covid that I refused to accept. Ten foot separation? Then six foot? Masks and plexiglass? Now that's crazy.
In addition, I am not a kook or a denier regarding climate change. I refuse to accept that it is man caused and therefore man can fix it. Now that to me is nuts.
The more the merrier.
Blogger Heartless Aztec said...
Global Strategist Peter Zeihan has long detailed the population implosion especially in China
According to Zeihan, Russia is imploding much faster just on a smaller scale.
His most famous prediction is the end of globalization and the consolidation of money and manufacturing back to North America. He also hates Trump and believes in global warming so just a trigger warning for the snowflakes who might get upset by his opinions.
I can't see the effects of the kung flu panic on the chart, Ann. Can you?
Since the chart only goes to up to 2020 and the panic started in 2020, all I can see is a projected blip. Perhaps that is speculation that there is an increase during the pandemic.
But the chart is too imprecise. When does that projected blip start? 2021? 2022? 2023? it is impossible to tell within 2-3 years given the very low 20 year resolution of the chart.
Available at the portal "How to Lie with Statistics" https://amzn.to/3tyV4Xg This practice of mooshing charts together like this is addressed in one of the chapters.
There's a reason this book has been continuously in print since the 1950s. I can't recommend it highly enough. Even the innumerate can read it quite easily.
John Henry
Ann Althouse said...
Can you see the effect of the covid pandemic on that chart?
Plug in the years and you can see the world birth rate has been declining since 1950.
69 million people die every year, according to Google. It also says COVID took about 3 million in 2020 and a cumulative total to date of 6 million over approximately two years. Some of those would likely have died of other causes.
There is going to be a rapid acceleration of that decline in the rate.
This winter is going to be nasty and there is going to be a widespread war soon. The Globalists need something to blame the famine and people freezing in their homes on like the Ukraine war.
And it is much easier for their corrupt puppets like Biden to launder tax money through wars. They get to call everyone who calls out their corruption traitors after they start a war.
Both Xi and Biden are losing their populations at home. This was just a planning session for two tyrants. Trudeau is going right down the same path Hitler trod step for step.
You have wonder how the Chi-Coms got the one child policy, created in 1980, so wrong. It was initiated long before St. Greta of Thunberg was even conceived. Or maybe the Chinese were disciples Paul Ehrlich, author of the laughable Population Bomb (1968). Could it be that's why Xi Jinpingpong was to flex his military muscles now, before his population goes down in flames?
Surely there are downsides to having many decision makers who are quite old. I'm convinced one big reason for the popularity of Covid lockdowns, to some degree causing permanent harm to young people, is that the boomers were so old. Protect all of us, well, me, even if it means harming a lot of healthy young people. Serious health issues used to be hidden or denied: the coverup of Woodrow Wilson's condition precipitated a constitutional amendment, and FDR's condition (probably including some cognitive failure at Yalta) was covered up. Years later Tsongas was forced to answer questions about his treatment for cancer, from which he seemed to have recovered (misleadingly--he died fairly soon). Today the Fetterman standard is: not bad for a person recovering from a stroke; and the Biden standard is God knows what. Try to get him to stick to a script.
"Can you see the effect of the covid pandemic on that chart?"
It looks to me like the data ends before COVID begins. Maybe it includes 2020, it's hard to tell. So I don't think it shows anything about COVID one way or the other.
Extrapolating any trend 50 years into the future (including temperature) is not worth the paper it's printed on. I'd love to see the UN population projections from 50 years ago to see how accurate they were.
Population decline is one of several geopolitical trends that will make the next 25+ years very interesting, along with food and energy shortages, currency changes, and war. According to some experts who have fairly pessimistic views of how these trends will unfold, the U.S. is one of the best-positioned countries to prosper in these tough upcoming decades, along with Mexico and some South American countries. You don’t want to be China.
Related, from Roger Pielke Jr.
How the Myth of the Population Bomb Was Born
As the world passes 8 billion people, a look back at the modern origins on neo-Malthusianism.
Howard said...
He [Zeihan] also hates Trump and believes in global warming so just a trigger warning for the snowflakes who might get upset by his opinions
He also thinks Obama was pretty much worthless (and this was before Trump). While he accepts that the climate is warming he also thinks that most of the proposed solutions for CO2 reduction are either logistically or technologically infeasible except in the very long term.
What accounts for the down-up swing around 1960?
Howard said: "He .... believes in global warming so just a trigger warning for the snowflakes who might get upset by his opinions."
I don't get triggered. I ridicule.
It's not hard. Bring Africa out of poverty, and its population grown will tumble, as it does everywhere that people are wealthy.
Begley - Not me.
I'd do anything to leave the US at this point. It's a lost cause.
If nothing is done soon, more than 7 Billion people now alive will be dead by the turn of the next century!
Did we hit a population spike in-between 1960-1980? Because that is what the chart shows.
Boulder scientists warn of 'climate change catastrophism'
btw - Climate change is real - how much of it is human caused? Scientists often get it wrong.
Never take anything environmentalists say seriously, except for the trivial and/or obvious ("Dumping oil into rivers is bad"). They're literally almost wrong about everything.
Well we can’t know the exact number of transgendered youth who will go on to reproduce and possibly reverse this dismal trend but as we say in calculus the number is so small it “will approach zero.”
2087? I going to take the under on this one. Population will start declining by 2030, and it likely won't be a slow decline either.
@ tim maguire -If Africa (and India, and Pakistan, and ...) became rich tomorrow, birth rates would quickly fall. But that ain't gonna happen. For a long time, we'll continue on the trajectory of rich countries getting older and having fewer children, while poor countries continue to grow.
And all the while, we will be told how unfair it is that the rich countries have so little of the world's population and so much of the world's wealth.
Why is there a drastic change in slope between the recent past and the projection?
btw - Climate change is real - how much of it is human caused? Scientists often get it wrong.
True
Also true. None of the remedies have any science to support they will do anything to address climate change.
The slowdown isn't happening fast enough.
The lefties are looking for new ways to stop the population growth that is making Gaia sad.
They've settled on puberty blockers and mutilating kids.
Not much, to be honest, but it's a start!
"And all 8 billion want to live in the United States."
The way things are going, I'm not sure I'm one of them anymore...
next 25+ years very interesting, along with food and energy shortages, currency changes, and war.
All of your list are disasters created by Govt malfeasance.
We saw all of this during covid. Terrible decisions. Often 180 degrees out of phase with the the goal being sought.
Supply chain problems? Just one small example. Getting goods away form the California docks. How to improve that?
1. 50% of trucks in the United States are not allowed to operate in California. ( a simple short term lifting of emission restrictions, fixes the problem.)
2. A 19 year old can get a class A divers license (Semi). They can drive 1 million miles in California. Drive everyday, and max out their hours, as set by the DOT. But they cannot leave the State. (also solvable by a temporary pause of the restriction.)
This idiocy goes on 247 across all levels of govt. Soon to lead to starvation and freezing to death.
More to the point, what the hell happened between 2015 and 2020?
Re: Africa. This from Wikipedia ...
According to the new UNICEF report, almost 2 billion babies will be born in Africa between 2015 and 2050 and the 2 main driving forces behind this surge in births and children are continued high fertility rates and rising numbers of women able to have children of their own.
By 2050, Africa is predicted to account for about 55% of all births in the world, 40% of all children under the age of five, and 37% of all children worldwide (under 18). Africa will become more crowded as its population continues to grow, considering the continent is predicted to grow from 8 people per square kilometer in 1950 to 39 in 2015, and to around 80 by the middle of the century.
The HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa has contributed to a population boom. Aid money used for contraception has been diverted since the start of the AIDS crisis in Africa into fighting HIV, which led to far more births, than deaths from AIDS.
Africa accounted for one out of every nine births in the world in 1950. It is predicted that they will account for approximately one in every three global births by the year 2030. Africa would account for almost half of all births by the end of the century.
Wikipedia
Current US population density: 34 people per square km.
(References at the link)
Prediction is hard -- especially about the future.
West TX Intermediate Crude @ 8:24: “If nothing is done soon…” You owe me a new keyboard!
By 2087 won't most of us be on Mars or Neptune?
Climate change is real
Of course it is. The climate was changing long before man appeared, and will continue to change as long as earth exists.
how much of it is human caused? Scientists often get it wrong.
How many of the global warming alarmist predictions have come true? I'm not aware of a single one, going back at least 100 years.
Why is it that if you take climate models that have been used for the last twenty years, enter the historical data and run them, they fail to produce results anything close to today's reality?
I'd do anything to leave the US at this point. It's a lost cause.
I would too, if there was anywhere better to go. I'm placing my hopes on Elon and easy and cheap access to space. Hopefully opening this new frontier will provide opportunities to found new republics and start over again.
Temujin (i think) said...
The only people in the US having 3 or more babies are people from the Middle East, Africa, parts of South or Central America, and India. Get it?
well, not only are the evangelical christians still popping out lots of kids..
The Amish folk around here are on a Literal population explosion.
But how many left wing, socially proper, college educated white women are going to have ANY grandkids? Let alone more than 4?
Inga? How many grandkids do YOU have? greatgrands? (i'm curious enough to spell your name correctly :)
2087??
I can make predictions for 2087.
Wait?!?!? Isn't climate change going to end civilization before 2087??
Can you see the effect of the covid pandemic on that chart?"
It looks to me like the data ends before COVID begins. Maybe it includes 2020, it's hard to tell. So I don't think it shows anything about COVID one way or the other.
The dashes are a prediction of the future. It appears they are predicting a brief uptick in the growth rate, probably attributed to the COVID lockdowns.
If the crazy climate goons get their way on "fossil fuels" the population line will begin to drop off pretty quickly. There are less than 3 weeks of diesel fuel left. Starvation and freezing to death will solve that problem.
Joe Smith said...
"And all 8 billion want to live in the United States."
The way things are going, I'm not sure I'm one of them anymore
{to paraphrase Abe Lincoln..}
"Where would you move do?"
"ANYWHERE!"
"see? There's the problem. You can want to move Anywhere.. But, i'd have to move SOMEWHERE"
Extrapolation of data that cannot be extrapolated.
Michael K,
The great die off (hidden under the alias of Great Reset) is pushing a 15th century level of energy usage, which will practically necessitate a 15th century population level. A mere 95% of us need to go away.
Hospitals running Covid death protocol$ did their best to cull the herd of elders.
The good news: fewer people will immolate on our burning planet.
"And of all those diverse changes, without question the most significant was secular fertility decline: sustained and progressive reductions in family size due to deliberate birth control practices by prospective parents."
From 2009. The trend was in. This is nothing new. Unless you listen to the environmental extremists who think man is just overrunning Gaia and needs to be completely exterminated - not realizing that humankind has set itself on a self destruct course already.
I had a daughter and a son and God knew my limit. My daughter, age 33, has 4; but my son, age 30, is at 0 after almost 5 years of marriage. If that changes, it will be a 1, possibly a 2. But if I had to bet - 0. Daughter's 4 are all male.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/18/the-population-implosion/
Gilbar said: "well, not only are the evangelical christians still popping out lots of kids..
The Amish folk around here are on a Literal population explosion."
Gilbar you are correct! Also the Orthodox Jews are having many, many babies. But these groups by themselves are not enough of a population boost to keep the us above the 2.1-2.5 replacement rate as a country.
Impossible! Paul Ehrlich said otherwise.
A trend is a trend is a trend.
The question is:
Will it alter its course
Due to some unforeseen force,
And come to a premature end?
The perils of rushed memory. I'll try again.
A trend is a trend is a trend.
The question is:
Will it bend?
Or be pushed off course
By an unforeseen force,
And come to a premature end?
"Can you see the effect of the covid pandemic on that chart?"
Can you see the effect of government overreaction to the covid pandemic on that chart?
Heaven help me, but the thought that COVID-19 research was explicitly about finding a way to kill old people preferentially won't go away. One of the problems that everyone knows is a problem but can't talk about is what to do in lean times about people who are net drains on societal wealth.
Anecdotally at least Eskimos had ice floes.
China has a long history of reverence for the elderly. It also has a long history of absolute ruthlessness, but that's not particularly special. What they have now is a government with unlimited internal control and a very big problem on the near horizon. I'm sure choices are being made.
Present trends don't continue beyond sustainability. I expect a return to large families in the near future.
The projection is wrong. Why do they expect the rate of decline to decrease?
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