Extrapolation doesn’t take into account the hubris, arrogance, and self destructive nature of human beings. We will obliterate vast portions of the world before 2100. There will be far less humans than 11 billion.
According to the United Nations, the world’s population reached 7.3 billion in the middle of 2015. During the past 12 years alone, another one billion people have been added to the planet’s population. It is forecast to increase by further billion over the next 15 years, reaching 8.5 billion in 2013. In 2050, it will pass the 9.7 billion mark, before topping 11.2 billion in 2100.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Looks like we need a NEO (near earth object) about a mile wide, or a good ole fashioned plague.
If the UN told me water was wet I’d check it first.
Just too many. We need to reduce here in the US to relax the growing social pressures. Course, we won’t.
US pop was 200M at our peak (20 July 1969) … now it is North of 340M … and not for the better.
World-wide debt default…no extra $ for humanitarian intervention in contagion hot spots…Africa gets culled out pretty quick.
@phoolish – In the event of a population “correction” the US wouldn’t be hit too hard with respect to population, but our resource use would have to drastically lower. Quality of life would take a hit for many, mostly in that they would have to stop relying on california farmers for food and would have to take up back yard gardening and the like to get by.
Countries like China/India or the EU conglomerate? They’ll take a pretty severe beating. The first two because of their truly outrageous population levels. The latter because their bleeding hearts will cause a large influx of new mouths that they really can’t afford to feed.
Going strictly by memory I believe estimates are that the carrying capacity of the earth is about 9 billion.
My own personal opinion is we don’t need any more people then what we already have. I believe at 9 billion the general living conditions will become intolerable. 11 billion I don’t believe is ever going to happen.
Some form of S curve is much more likely than that linear projection. And yes I’m well aware given a longer time graph that would look more log or hockey stick than linear.
Admin –
The study also does not take into account that the correlation between population and energy availability is pretty ‘effing high. Fastest chart i could find available is here as “Figure 12: World Population vs. Sum-of-Energies Population 800-2050”. Link:
That is a “new-ish” paper but that chart, in one form or another, has been around for some time.
When pulling energy out of the raw geo-matrix goes net negative in terms of BTU recovery, it don’t matter how much money is around. Those “energy resources” are going to stay in the ground.
Less food is going to be produced because agriculture won’t adapt fast enough. Right now, depending on crop, it is costing between 4-8 calories of oil to get 1 calorie of food to table.
There’s going to be a die-off whether there’s a war or not. Whether one is in it or not is part luck but knowing how to grow your own food and staying in practice gives you an edge.
Da P
Professor , do you count yourself in this die off ?
One of the most boring episodes of the original Star Trek is “The Mark of Gideon.”
The planet Gideon suffers from mass overpopulation, refuses to use birth control or abortion to keep the population in check, and finally imports disease-carrying humans (e.g., Capt. Kirk) to infect the population with disease and thus cull the herd.
The biggest problem with humanity is that we like to congregate in popular areas (e.g., large cities) and keep adding to the population in those areas until living conditions become intolerable.
I don’t know that the problem is necessarily ‘too many people.’ Perhaps it’s ‘too many people’ who are poor creating massive and unbearable congestion in our cities.
Since there is no limit to the demand for ‘free’ social benefits, one solution might be to abolish those social benefits in urban areas and restrict the availability of such benefits to rural areas. This would force the poor population to disperse to rural areas, rather than flock en masse to major population centers.
What was hilarious about that episode — as almost always the case — were the CHEESEY “special effects”.
Here are some of the billions of Gideons walking around right behind Captain Kirk. lol WTF is that … some kind of $9.95 garden lattice? lol
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Speaking of Star Trek
If I were dick tator in chief I’d limit the population to those incapable of re-producing.
I’m with admin…….I seriously doubt we’ll hold it together long enough to reach 11 billion. Gonna be a serious culling coming our way. I hope it’s a ELE asteroid out of the blue myself that way we don’t have to listen to the bobbleheaded news wenches (cute as they are) or anyone else for that matter, drone on about it. One second we’re here, the next second we’re not. Just hope you’re on the near side that day.
Its one of the downfalls of democracy, the sole purpose of a lot of lives is to vote a certain way.
Other than that, they do nothing, live nothing, contribute nothing. They work their job that a robot could easily do, or a skilled person could easily do 5X faster, and then go home to watch 5 hours of reality TV while shoveling several thousand calories worth of fast food in their gullets.
In essence, they are less useful cows.
Maybe we should just give cows the right to vote and cut out the middle man.
Perfesser,
Due respect, but for the next few centuries at least, the planet is capable of producing as much energy as the oligarchs will let us have. If there is an energy-related population die-off, it will be because the oligarchs are restricting the supply.
Two words: Georgia Guidestones.
http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_guidestones
Anarcho –
Would love to believe that but cannot find the numbers to support it.
Were one to examine current market prices for portable, safe fuels and then consider that status quo for the long term well…okay. BUT, when the derivatives “tail” stops wagging the physical market “dog” you will see a horse of an entirely different color, I’m afraid.
However, one organizes their life as they see the world and hopes for the best. If you’re right then we’re both good.
DaP
Anarcho – A clarification…
“portable, safe fuels” means (to me anyway) gasoline, diesel and regional (on-continent) NatGas.
I could also see coal making a comeback to a limited extent in certain applications.
DaP
First, Here is what the chart looks like on a 200 year scale:
Second, of ocurse energy is the real driver of carrying capacity and of course energy is what has caused the hockey stick on the population curve over the psat 150 years.
But, people think about energy in the wrong way…it is not about quantity but quality. In other words EROIE–Energy Returned Over Energy Invested. There IS always plenty of energy..in fact, there is the same amount of energy that there has always beem (1st Law), but we have used up the highest quality–ie most easily extracted, low hanging fruit–energy (2nd Law).
2000 year scale.
VegasBob: You are right that too many people pile on the Urban Jungles causing all kinds of human and environmental stress; but, please don’t even consider sending the FSA (that only consumes and pollutes) into rural areas; we don’t want Muslims, illegals or your FSA problems either. If the South fought ya’ll once for whatever reasons, don’t think it couldn’t happen again for this. We don’t think the influx was all that good for ya’ll after the Civil War so you won’t be able to con us. A better solution would be to set up new reservations on Federal land in open areas out West where they would have plenty of room, freedom, sunshine, fresh air and beautiful scenery. Food Stamps would be the same and by selling their current welfare housing to pay for their new housing, it shouldn’t cost the taxpayers more. They could hire and manage their own police, teachers, public workers, etc, without White Privilege causing all their (perceived) problems. They would have the chance they always wanted to run everything and show how great they really are.