Larger populations require more food, water, and energy, and consequently tax the earth's ability to replace used resources. Overpopulation depletes wildlife to dangerously low levels. Overfishing has ruined many formerly fertile fishing grounds.
A major impact of overpopulation is ecological damage. As the world's population has grown exponentially, the Earth has suffered. The expanded population has adversely affected numerous ecosystems around the globe.
Will the human race run out of room to live? With population expanding at such a rapid pace, the world will eventually become overcrowded. Population density will increase and global warming, rising tides and increased severity of weather will cause the amount of viable land to decrease.
Earth's capacity
Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people. [ How Do You Count 7 Billion People?] One such scientist, the eminent Harvard University sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, bases his estimate on calculations of the Earth's available resources.
In fact, so many people are on the planet today that we're driving the population reduction of other species, as well as a host of other environmental problems. If this trend of destruction continues, it might result in the eventual downfall of not only many of the earth's animal species but the human race as well.
Apply the same concept to the whole of human history then - that we're not witnessing humanity at its birth nor its death right at this moment - and while results do vary, we can say that our species will die out at some point between 5,100 years and 7.8 million years in the future.
But how long can humans last? Eventually humans will go extinct. At the most wildly optimistic estimate, our species will last perhaps another billion years but end when the expanding envelope of the sun swells outward and heats the planet to a Venus-like state. But a billion years is a long time.
Geographer Chris Tucker estimates that 3 billion is a sustainable number, provided human societies rapidly deploy less harmful technologies and best management practices. Other estimates of a sustainable global population also come in at considerably less than the current population of 8 billion.
Human population, now nearing 8 billion, cannot continue to grow indefinitely. There are limits to the life-sustaining resources earth can provide us. In other words, there is a carrying capacity for human life on our planet. Carrying capacity is the maximum number of a species an environment can support indefinitely.
The world's current (overall as well as natural) growth rate is about 1.14%, representing a doubling time of 61 years. We can expect the world's population of 6.5 billion to become 13 billion by 2067 if current growth continues.
Tech entrepreneur and multi-billionaire Elon Musk claims that underpopulation rather than overpopulation is the greatest threat that faces humanity, despite the current destruction of nature and the millions of people living in extreme poverty.
Together, China and India are home to more than one third of the world's population. For many decades, the size and growth of the Chinese and Indian populations have been a focus of global concerns about the rapid growth of the human population and its implications for sustainable development (United Nations, 2022c).
More than a third of 50 recently surveyed Nobel laureates cited “population rise / environmental degradation” as the biggest threat to humankind.
Population growth could grind to a halt by 2050, before decreasing to as little as 6 billion humans on Earth in 2100, a new analysis of birth trends has revealed.
Housing and feeding so many people has accelerated the destruction of natural habitats, while higher levels of consumption, particularly in some richer parts of the world, have also increased the exploitation of natural resources and led to growing levels of pollution.
The current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations report being launched today.
“The last time that global population declined was in the mid 14th century, due to the Black Plague.
The current population of World in 2023 is 8,045,311,447, a 0.88% increase from 2022. The population of World in 2022 was 7,975,105,156, a 0.83% increase from 2021. The population of World in 2021 was 7,909,295,151, a 0.87% increase from 2020.
So, with only room enough for each person to spin around with their arms extended, the entire human population could mathematically fit in an area the size of the largest island in the Hawaiian island chain, the Island of Hawai'i (10,430 km2)!
The UN Population Division report of 2022 projects world population to continue growing after 2050, although at a steadily decreasing rate, to peak at 10.4 billion in 2086, and then to start a slow decline to about 10.3 billion in 2100 with a growth rate at that time of -0.1%.
By 2050 , the world's population will exceed at least 9 billion and by 2050 the population of India will exceed that of China. By 2050, about 75% of the world population will be living in cities. Then there will be buildings touching the sky and cities will be settled from the ground up.
Humans in the year 3000 will have a larger skull but, at the same time, a very small brain. "It's possible that we will develop thicker skulls, but if a scientific theory is to be believed, technology can also change the size of our brains," they write.
World population is expected to increase from 7 billion today to over 9 billion in 2050. A growing population is likely to increase pressures on the natural resources that supply energy and food. World GDP is projected to almost quadruple by 2050, despite the recent recession.