9 Billion by 2050

Human population is on track to hit 9 billion by 2050.

The number of people on the planet is estimated to have hit the one billion mark in the very early 1800s; probably around 1805. One hundred and fifty five (155) years later, in 1960, the population of the world had increased by 2 billion to reach 3 billion.

But now—exceeding all forecasts made back the 60s and 70s—the population is going to increase by three times the 155 year growth between 1805 and 1960 and is guaranteed to hit or exceed 9 billion by 2050; baring some huge population levelling disaster occurring.

 

My cheap and nasty plot above (it was 12:40 a.m. Saturday night/Sunday morning) captures this increase and demonstrates the staggering growth of the human population since the early 1960s.

There are a number of problems with this staggering increase in humans.

Expert opinion tells us that the planet can probably ‘comfortably’ support, at a push, about 5.5 billion people; maybe 6. We hit this supportable number around the year 2000 or a bit after. For ten years now the planet has been working hard to sustain a lot of extra people. Just checking the world clock [use Ctrl+Click to open the World Clock in a new Tab] I see that as I sit here tonight keying this post up the population is 6.839 billion.

So far the planet is just managing to hold its own. But what happens at 8 or 9 billion?