A crowded railway station in Hyderabad, India. A new report projects that India will become the world’s most populous country by about 2027, surpassing China. Mahesh Kumar A. / AP file
The world’s population could swell to 10.9 billion by the end of the century, a new United Nations analysis found, raising concerns that adding more than 3 billion people to the planet could further deplete natural resources and accelerate global warming.
The increase, up from the current count of 7.7 billion people, is expected despite a continued decline in the global fertility rate, which has fallen from 3.2 births per woman in 1990 to 2.5 births per woman this year. Experts say the global fertility rate will continue to decline, but the world’s overall population will still rise, hitting 9.7 billion by 2050.
The new report predicts slower population growth than the U.N.’s last assessment, released in 2017. That estimate projected that the world population would reach a staggering 11.2 billion by the end of the century. The revised figures reflect the downward trend in the global fertility rate, which means the populations of more countries are shrinking.
The fastest growth, according to the new report, is most likely to occur in sub-Saharan Africa, which is expected to double its population in the next 30 years. The report also projected that India would become the world’s most populous country by about 2027, surpassing China, which is expected to see its current population of 1.43 billion dip 2.2 percent by 2050. Over the next 30 years, 54 other countries are expected to see population declines, including Lithuania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Japan.
The United States is estimated to grow from 329 million people in 2019 to 434 million people by the end of the century, with most of that projected increase owing to migration.
According to the U.N., many of the fastest-growing regions are among the poorest, which could exacerbate issues of hunger and displacement.
Scientists are also concerned about the effect of population growth on climate change. As the global population increases, so will humanity’s footprint on the planet.
“Our impact on the climate is tied up with population in lots of different ways — what resources people are using, how much industrial production is going on, how much energy is needed for heating, cooling and transportation,” Amy Snover, director of the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group, said. “All of these things affect greenhouse gas emissions, so the more people we have and the more resources we use, the harder it will be to cope with the risks and impacts of climate change.”
In a world filled with plastic, how do you live without it?
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But population growth is just one of the factors driving climate change. Consumption habits also matter, and they’re far from uniform across countries.
“There’s a massive disconnect between where the most population growth is happening and where the greatest consumption is happening,” said Corey Bradshaw, director of the Global Ecology Laboratory at Flinders University in Australia. In other words, the average person’s lifestyle in the U.S. is more detrimental to the environment than the average person’s in sub-Saharan Africa. That means rapid population growth in Africa won’t be as damaging to the environment as a similar population increase would be in the U.S.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/world-s-population-could-swell-10-9-billion-2100-u-ncna1017791
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Armory of the Revolution.
“In other words, the average person’s lifestyle in the U.S. is more detrimental to the environment than the average person’s in sub-Saharan Africa. That means rapid population growth in Africa won’t be as damaging to the environment as a similar population increase would be in the U.S.”
I don’t know if it is really that simple. With more wildlands being converted to agricultural lands to feed growing populations, wildlife that is already feeling the stress of human activities will be even more so. Already some countries are justifying taking protections away from elephants because of crop damage, and of course lions and other carnivores being a threat to cattle.
We are going to have to face an ethical dilemma about whether it is right to push other living creatures on the planet to smaller and smaller habitat, if not outright extinction, because we deem ourselves ‘more important’.
I wonder how the author defines ‘damage’? Strictly an energy usage, climate emissions definition? Each environment comes with its own unique challenges and wildlife.
True.