The Earth's population growth

Aaargh... why is it always so crowded everywhere? I was lucky to get a seat... if this was 100,000 years ago... then I'd have some peace and quiet...

Our species, homo sapiens, emerged more than two hundred thousand years ago. In the beginning, people gathered, and lived off berries, fruits and plants. And they hunted wild animals and fished. They didn't have permanent settlements, instead they moved over large areas to find food and water... they were nomads.

For a long period of time only a few hundred thousand people lived on the whole Earth. Jenny would have had a lot more space. Look: This diagram shows time... and the number of people on Earth. The line shows the population increase over one hundred thousand years.

The line is almost completely straight: for a long time the population grew very slowly. But! 12,000 years ago something important happened in the history of mankind. People learned how to farm plants and domesticate animals: they became farmers. They no longer needed to roam around to find food and settled.

That's when the world population quickly started to grow: the line turns up sharply. Two thousand years ago, that is, at the beginning of our time reckoning, there were 170 million people... And one thousand years ago: more than 250 million. In the 14th century almost half of all people living in Europe died of the plague: the world population decreased. But this was just a momentary fall.

After a while the number of people increased again. And in the year 1500 there were 500 million. Industrialization brought modern medicine and technologies. Fewer children died, and more children were born. And the population started to increase even faster.

In eighteen-twenty a milestone was reached: One billion people! And only one hundred years later, in nineteen-twenty: Two billion! The two World Wars didn't even stop the increase. Nineteen sixty: Three billion! Year two thousand: Six billion!

And two-thousand sixteen: Seven billion people! Look at this graph: Humans have been there for a long time, but our numbers have grown rapidly in a short timespan. We can call this a population explosion! Neither wars nor diseases have so far been able to affect the increase. And we are still growing in number.

Everyone needs to be able to get food and water. Can the earth handle more cars and emissions? Will the world's population increase lead to conflicts, wars, pollution? Will humans, plants, and animals survive if there will be even more people? Humanity is facing huge challenges.

But... at least it seems like the population growth will come to a halt in a while. During recent decades many people around the world have become better off. When there is access to health care... when all children can attend school...

and when both men and women have an occupation, then it's common for a family to only have one or two children. Here you can see how - we guess - the world's population will evolve in the future. When more people around the world become better off, this means that fewer children will be born. The world population will continue to increase, but at a slower pace. And around the year 2100 the world's population will stop growing.

Then we will be around eleven billion people. That is still many more than today. And to manage that, we need to become better at taking care of the earth's resources. And everyone will need to show more consideration.