Three weeks ago the world’s population passed seven billion with predictions that it could reach 15 billion by the end of the century. Naturally the emphasis of media stories was on the planet’s ability to support such a figure and the stark environmental dangers of a population explosion. Certainly the figures are staggering. It took 250,000 years for the global population to reach 1 billion, another century to reach 2 billion and 32 years more to reach 3 billion. However, the increase from 5 billion in 1987 to 6 billion took only 12 years; and 12 years later, it stands at 7 billion. By 2050, the UN estimates there there will be 9.3 billion people.
In fact, the growth in the world’s population is actually slowing, with the peak of population growth in the late 1960s, when the total was rising by almost 2% a year. Now the rate is half that figure. The last time it was so low was in 1950, when the death rate was much higher. The result is that the next billion people, according to the UN, will take 14 years to arrive, the first time that a billion milestone has taken longer to reach than the one before. The billion after that will take 18 years.
