Anyone who believes in the indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist - Kenneth Boulding (economist and President Kennedy’s Environmental Advisor)
Welcome to a new post based on data and statistics that can inspire some interesting debate among fellow Steemians!
Let me start with a couple of simple questions: " How many years it took for the Global Population to reach one Billion and when did it happen"? I could not articulate an answer and, surprisingly enough, the answer is: "it took millennia" and we reached one Billion only in 1803. Then the time to add another Billion people started to decrease, formed a plateau and it is expected to grow from now on (based on the UN's medium projection to 2100).
| Years needed to add 1 billion people | Global Population | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Millennia | 1 billion | from origins to 1803 |
| 124 | 2 billion | 1803 - 1927 |
| 33 | 3 billion | 1927 - 1960 |
| 15 | 4 billion | 1960 - 1975 |
| 12 | 5 billion | 1975 - 1987 |
| 12 | 6 billion | 1987 - 1999 |
| 12 | 7 billion | 1999 - 2011 |
| 13 | 8 billion | 2011 - 2024 |
| 14 | 9 billion | 2024 - 2038 |
| 18 | 10 billion | 2038 - 2056 |
| 32 | 11 billion | 2056 - 2088 |
As you might guess, a lot of questions arise...what does determine the population growth and the speed of the growth?
Many factors concur. There is a positive difference between births and deaths (every year 141 million are born and 57 million die, so we add 84 million people every year) due to a decrease of mortality despite the reduction of fertility.
In the so-called Demographic Transition (made of 5 stages) we are in stage 3, where fertility declines because of social changes: parents are aware that mortality of children is not so high anymore and choose to give birth to fewer children. Also, children are less economically valuable and women are socially more important. As a result, the birth rate is falling and the death rate falls more slowly.
During stage 4, both birth and death rates are falling and the increase in population is falling and then gets stable.
In stage 5, the birth rate is rising again and the death rate is low so the increase in population is stable or slowly rising.
Much can be said about how politics can try to influence the Demographic Transition, perhaps slowing down part of the process or trying to limit what families can or cannot do. Education can probably help to solve some of the issues. Unfortunately, it is not something simple to regulate and the discussion can be endless, especially considering other important factors regarding our planet and its limited resources (see one of the previous posts), pollution, climate changes, migration flows and so on...
Do you think there should be a sort of international effort to find a reasonable way to regulate the global population growth or humankind should be left free in this aspect?
data source: ourworldindata.org
all pics from Pixabay