The New York Times reports on some incredibly good news for a change. According to current projections, the global human population is probably going to start declining sometime around 2050. The NYT writes:
All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.
Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.
Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.
The 20th century presented a very different challenge. The global population saw its greatest increase in known history, from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000, as life spans lengthened and infant mortality declined. In some countries — representing about a third of the world’s people — those growth dynamics are still in play. By the end of the century, Nigeria could surpass China in population; across sub-Saharan Africa, families are still having four or five children.
But nearly everywhere else, the era of high fertility is ending. .... Even in countries long associated with rapid growth, such as India and Mexico, birthrates are falling toward, or are already below, the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family.
The NYT goes on to point out a couple of things. For example, lower populations will take some pressure off the environment and governments world wide. Detrimental climate change could slow, assuming it's not already too late to slow the damage.
Over a period of decades, an exponential downward population spiral could occur. Fewer births means fewer girls grow up to have children. If they have smaller families than their parents did the population decrease accelerates. These days, family size in most countries is decreasing, so the downward spiral could happen.
It's all just good news.
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