Did you know that only 2.3 billion people live in a democracy? That's 29% of 8 billion. Donald Trump wants to lower this number by a few more percent.
One thing about the global population is that no one knows for sure. So will the number of people reach 8 billion today? No, we're already past that number. Time magazine says the world will reach 8 billion on January 1: WORLD POPULATION UP 75 MILLION THIS YEAR, STANDING AT 8 BILLION ON JAN. 1.
Officially, the United Nations announced that 8 billion was reached in mid-November of last year.
- On 30 July 2022 my posting reported that the world would reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022.
- Then on 19 November 2022, I confirmed that the world hit 8 billion on 15 November 2022. This number and date were announced by the United Nations Population Division.
- Watch Rachel Snow of the United Nations Population Fund on November 11 make this video about reaching 8 billion.
Actually, if you look very closely at the right graphic, and do the math, the Census Bureau actually said 8 billion was reached on September 23, 2023. So the Time citation of January 1, 2024 was wrong.- Further, AP indicated that the UN actually declared 22 November 2022 as the Day of 8 Billion.
- AP also said that this discrepancy is due to countries counting people differently...or not at all. India and Nigeria, for example, have not conducted a census in over a decade.
- Some other details.
- The current global median age is now 32.
- But this number will jump to 39 in 2060 because people will be living longer.
- The minimum number of births to remain at the current population is 2.1/female. Almost 75% of people now live in countries with a fertility rate at that number. The only countries with a fertility rate above 5 are in Africa.
So what is the correct answer about when the world population reached 8 billion? Probably at some point between 15 November 2022 and 23 September 2023.
Interesting that the UN in 2012 summarized 65 different maximum sustainable sizes, and the most common figure was 8 billion. Paul Ehrlich, author of Population Bomb in 1968, a half century later in 2018 thought that there was a near certainty that our civilization would collapse within decades at 8 billion. He and his wife Anne (who was a co-author of that seminal book) thought this number should be between 1.5 billion and 2 billion. Then last year, the Ehrlichs, with other experts, stated that the sustainable level of our human population at between 2 and 4 billion. So by current consensus, we have too many people trying to survive on Planet Earth.
Worldometer, my source for those years of Covid-19 data, has a page showing the world population at 8.082 billion, changing by +2.4 every second. A few other bits of information.
- Books published this year at 2.8 million, with a new one every 10 seconds.
- Internet users in the world today at 6 billion.
- Overweight people in the world at 1.7 billion.
- Communicable disease deaths this year at 13 million.
- 44.6 million abortions so far this year.
- 45 million HIV/AIDS infected people in the world.
- 392,674 deaths by malaria this year.
- Just a little more than a million suicides in the world this year.
- 1.344 million road traffic fatalities this year.
That's Nigeria above the USA, and Pakistan just below.
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