Birth rates are falling fast but another billion people are coming

I am constantly encountering maps online showing falling birth rates in countries around the world with alot of hand-writing about the consequences. And while there are consequences from resulting changes in society in some places – I’ve written about New Hampshire’s “silver tsunami” more times than I can count – I find that people often conflate falling birth rates with falling population.

So here’s a reminder: The global population will increase by at least an extra billion people this century.

Even the most conservative estimates say we’ll hit 9.5 billion people (the UN says 10.3 billon) before the population stabilizes. We’re growing more slowly but we’re still growing and we’ve built up such a head of steam that it will be a long time before we stop.

So if you hear people talking about “depopulation” and how women’s lives need to change to meet the challenge (oddly enough, men’s lives never need to change) please tell them to get lost.

Within your lifetime we’ll need a billion more housing units, a billion more fresh water supplies, a trillion more calories daily grown, processed and provided (assuming 1,000 calories a day).