World population: A lot of people? Yes. Apocalypse? No.
The United Nations has identified Monday as the day world population hits 7 billion. Many find the Halloween date appropriate given the frightening prospect of this demographic milestone. As if 7 billion weren’t scary enough, the U.N. projects 10 billion people by 2083, the addition of roughly three more Indias.
But the parents of the 7-billionth person should not be afraid for their child’s future. In spite of the daunting challenges facing the world, including global warming, rising food prices and a billion people in poverty, the 7-billionth child will almost surely have a better life than the 3-billionth or 6-billionth child.
How will the world cope with this many people? Consider what the world looked like in 1960, when the population hit 3 billion. Falling infant and child mortality caused population growth rates to surpass 2% per year in the 1960s, probably for the first time in history. At 2% growth, the world would double in 35 years, and that is roughly what happened — world population grew to 6 billion in 1999. World population will not come close to doubling again in 39 years. Indeed, it may never double again. Fertility has fallen rapidly, with many developing countries at or near the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. The world’s population growth rate has been falling since its peak in the 1960s, and we may never get much above the 10.1 billion people projected for 2100.
So we’ve just been through the fastest population growth the world will ever see. It’s a good time to look back and see how the world survived it.
There were gloomy predictions in the 1960s about the consequences of rapid population growth, the most famous appearing in Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, “The Population Bomb.” He wrote that “the battle to feed humanity is already lost, in the sense that we will not be able to prevent large-scale famines in the next decade.”
Happily, Ehrlich was wrong. World food production grew faster than population during the last 50 years. Food production per person in 2009 was 41% higher than in 1961.
No country generated more fear about overpopulation than India. But food production there has grown faster than population since the Green Revolution of the late 1960s. Food production per person in India today is 37% higher than in 1961, although there are 2.6 times more people.
Although there are still serious problems with food distribution and malnutrition, we have done remarkably well at feeding the extra 4 billion people added since 1960. This should make us optimistic about feeding the 3 billion more to be added in the next 70 years.