Overpopulation - Is this true?

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While 7billion people might fit into Texas, I doubt that is any guide to the carrying capacity of the globe (or of Texas).

It may be that the birth rate will fall to match the death rate, ending ongoing population growth. One wonders what “means” underpin the low forecast birth rate.
 
I didn’t rule the possibility out. I interpreted the question as asking if the Earth overpopulated right now and that’s simply not the case. Some also think we must implement a one-child policy right now to avert overpopulation in the future. In response, I would point out most demographers don’t see overpopulation as a problem and most models show that.
There’s that possibility they could be wrong and the consequences would be bad but in the sense the better off people like most of us in the West will have to make sacrifices such as ridding ourselves of our addiction to consumerism and maybe living like it’s WWII.
 
I don’t know. I doubt that the decline in births and declining total fertility rates are due to contraception. But I haven’t seen any data on that aspect. Personally, despite living in a sex saturated culture, I think that it is due to lack of interest, an overarching ennui which sees no point in carrying on the human race.
 
Genesis 1:26, baby!
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Rau said:
Would this be so absent contraception?
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Falling birth rates due to many reasons. For example, the role of women in the workplace. Women are putting careers first and postponing having children till much later than before. Also women are having fewer children, often due to social and financial pressures.
 
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Made up history.

I would suggest a course in logic.
There is no way anyone has the knowledge necessary to build a graph like that.
 
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I am an ecologist, and we talk about this a lot in terms of the environment.
For a long, long time our population was less than 1 billion. With better medical care leading to less death by illness and lower infant mortality rates, the industrial revolution (less poverty, better quality of life) and improvement in large scale agriculture and many other factors, birth rates exceeded death rates. The blue line on the graph is an exponential growth curve which levels off at about 12 billion in 2060. But that’s changing now, the red line (grow rate) on the graph is decreasing. The one of the reasons we are able to model this information is because humans have been taking population censuses for a long time and its an exponential function which can be extrapolated, models can be compared to determine the most probable shape of the curve.

ourworldindata.org

Population Growth

Explore global and national data on population growth, demography, and how they are changing.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

Also, this cool website that estimates the world population at this very moment based on estimated birth and death rates: World Population Clock: 7.9 Billion People (2021) - Worldometer

I think that the struggle here is less about having too many people (I think the world can support us at this time) but more so making sure the quality of life for ALL people on earth is good. That would mean us in the developed world need to give up some luxuries. It’s very complicated. But if we want a good quality of life with a population that is larger than it ever has been, we need to keep technology up to date and try to live sustainably. Be stewards of creation.

“How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.”
 
thistle said:
Falling birth rates due to many reasons. For example, the role of women in the workplace. Women are putting careers first and postponing having children till much later than before. Also women are having fewer children, often due to social and financial pressures.
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Clearly population growth has slowed because the birth rate has fallen! What you have listed are motivations for reduced birth rate, rather than how the lower rate was achieved. Would it have occurred at this time without contraception? Seems unlikely to me.
 
Rau said:
What you have listed are motivations for reduced birth rate, rather than how the lower rate was achieved. Would it have occurred at this time without contraception? Seems unlikely to me.
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Contraception is probably a big part of the “how”. But there’s less “baby dances” occurring amoung a growing portion compared to previous generations. Teen pregnancy is down and so is teen sexual activity. I’d even wager that activity is down among single 30 somethings.
 
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