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Human overpopulation

Not to be confused with Population growth.

Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of world population, though it may concern individual nations, regions, and cities.

Since 1804, the global living human population has increased from 1 billion to 8 billion due to medical advancements and improved agricultural productivity. Annual world population growth peaked at 2.1% in 1968 and has since dropped to 1.1%.[1] According to the most recent United Nations' projections, the global human population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and would peak at around 10.4 billion people in the 2080s, before decreasing, noting that fertility rates are falling worldwide.[2]: 14–30  Other models agree that the population will stabilize before or after 2100.[3][4][5] Conversely, other researchers have found that national birth registries data from 2022 and 2023 that cover half the world's population indicate that the 2022 UN projections overestimated fertility rates by 10 to 20% and are already outdated, that the global fertility rate has possibly already fallen below the sub-replacement fertility level for the first time in human history, and that the global population will peak at approximately 9.5 billion by 2061.[6] The 2024 UN projections report estimated that world population would peak at 10.29 billion in 2084 and decline to 10.18 billion by 2100, which was 6% lower than the UN had estimated in 2014.[7][8][9]

Early discussions of overpopulation in English were spurred by the work of Thomas Malthus. Discussions of overpopulation follow a similar line of inquiry as Malthusianism and its Malthusian catastrophe,[10][11] a hypothetical event where population exceeds agricultural capacity, causing famine or war over resources, resulting in poverty and depopulation. More recent discussion of overpopulation was popularized by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book The Population Bomb and subsequent writings.[12][13] Ehrlich described overpopulation as a function of overconsumption,[14] arguing that overpopulation should be defined by a population being unable to sustain itself without depleting non-renewable resources.[15][16][17]

The belief that global population levels will become too large to sustain is a point of contentious debate. Those who believe global human overpopulation to be a valid concern, argue that increased levels of resource consumption and pollution exceed the environment's carrying capacity, leading to population overshoot.[18] The population overshoot hypothesis is often discussed in relation to other population concerns such as population momentum, biodiversity loss,[19] hunger and malnutrition,[20] resource depletion, and the overall human impact on the environment.[21]

Critics of the belief note that human population growth is decreasing and the population will likely peak, and possibly even begin to decrease, before the end of the century.[2]: 27  They argue the concerns surrounding population growth are overstated, noting that quickly declining birth rates and technological innovation make it possible to sustain projected population sizes. Other critics claim that overpopulation concerns ignore more pressing issues, like poverty or overconsumption, are motivated by racism, or place an undue burden on the global south where most population growth happens.[22][23]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference OWOD2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results (PDF) (Report). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2022. UN DESA/POP/2022/TR/NO.3.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Roser-2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vollset-2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Science was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Ip, Greg; Adamy, Janet (13 May 2024). "Suddenly There Aren't Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed". The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. Retrieved 13 May 2024.
  7. ^ Shan, Lee Ying (11 July 2024). "Global population to peak within this century as birth rates fall, United Nations report says". CNBC. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  8. ^ Dougherty, Danny (11 July 2024). "Earth's Population Should Peak Before the End of the Century". The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  9. ^ World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results (PDF) (Report). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 11 July 2024. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  10. ^ "Human Overpopulation: Still an Issue of Concern?". Scientific American. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  11. ^ Fletcher, Robert; Breitling, Jan; Puleo, Valerie (9 August 2014). "Barbarian hordes: the overpopulation scapegoat in international development discourse". Third World Quarterly. 35 (7): 1195–1215. doi:10.1080/01436597.2014.926110. ISSN 0143-6597. S2CID 144569008.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ceballos2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Ehrlich, Paul; Ehrlich, Anne (2013). "Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 280 (1754): 20122845. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2845. PMC 3574335. PMID 23303549. S2CID 2822298.
  14. ^ Paul Ehrlich; Anne H. Ehrlich (4 August 2008). "Too Many People, Too Much Consumption". Yale Environment 360. Yale School of the Environment. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  15. ^ Ehrlich, Paul R. Ehrlich & Anne H. (1990). The population explosion. London: Hutchinson. pp. 39–40. ISBN 978-0091745516. Retrieved 20 July 2014. When is an area overpopulated? When its population cannot be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources [39] (or converting renewable resources into nonrenewable ones) and without decreasing the capacity of the environment to support the population. In short, if the long-term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants, that area is overpopulated.
  16. ^ Ehrlich, Paul R; Ehrlich, Anne H (2004), One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future, Island Press/Shearwater Books, pp. 76–180, 256
  17. ^ Ehrlich, Paul R; Ehrlich, Anne H (1991), Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis, Addison-Wesley Books, pp. 6–8, 12, 75, 96, 241
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Crist2022 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Brashares, Justin; Arcese, Peter; Sam, Moses (2001). "Human demography and reserve size predict wildlife extinction in West Africa". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 268 (1484): 2473–2478. doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1815. PMC 1088902. PMID 11747566.
  20. ^ Daily, Gretchen; Ehrlich, Anne; Ehrlich, Paul (1994). "Optimum human population size". Population and Environment. 15 (6): 469–475. doi:10.1007/BF02211719. S2CID 153761569.
  21. ^ Dasgupta, Partha (2019). Time and the Generations: Population Ethics for a Diminishing Planet. Columbia University Press.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rao-1994 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference Monbiot-2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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