Hacker News Reader

Human global population is no longer increasing at an exponential rate.[1]

It's very likely that by ~2060 human fertility rate will drop below "replacement rate" (2.1 children per woman), thus beginning a long, slow decline in population.[2]

[1] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...

[2] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/FERT/TOT/...

View on HN

At this point I think that hardly matters anymore, the damage is done, there are already too many people. Even if population growth were to drop to < 0 (below replacement) today, this planet can simply not sustain 7.4 billion humans at their current consumption rate. Even less so as that rate is still increasing (as more and more people attain Western standards of living). A trillion ants aren't as impactful as a billion humans are.

impact = population * consumption

One way or another, our impact is going to go down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com