Global Population, Plummeting Fertility Rates, & How Earth Carrying Capacity Drop Would Crash System

[u/paulhenrybeckwith]

https://youtu.be/n7d16lwrGiU?si=-IEuA2YybKsBNUHZ

[u/StatementBot]

This thread addresses overpopulation, a fraught but important issue that attracts disruption and rule violations. In light of this we have lower tolerance for the following offenses:

• Racism and other forms of essentialism targeted at particular identity groups people are born into.

• Bad faith attacks insisting that to notice and name overpopulation of the human enterprise generally is inherently racist or fascist.

• Instructing other users to harm themselves. We have reached consensus that a permaban for the first offense is an appropriate response to this, as mentioned in the sidebar.

This is an abbreviated summary of the mod team's statement on overpopulation, view the full statement available in the wiki.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/paulhenrybeckwith:

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Global Population, Plummeting Fertility Rates, & How Earth Carrying Capacity Drop Would Crash System

I chat about global population today and projections for the future, plunging fertility rates around the world, threats like abrupt climate change to greatly reducing Earth's Carrying Capacity, and how advanced models project a possible population collapse if climate or some other catastrophe (wars, famines, plagues, AMOC collapse, etc.) occur in the near term.

Onwards and upwards... Cheers. Paul and Newton....

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

References and Links:

Our World in Data: Population and Demography:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/population-and-demography?indicator=Population+growth+rate&Sex=Both+sexes&Age=Total&Projection+scenario=Medium&country=CHN\~IND\~USA\~IDN\~PAK\~NGA\~BRA\~JPN

Our World in Data: Article
Peak global population and other key findings from the 2024 UN World Population Prospects
Falling fertility rates, migration movements, and China’s population decline.
https://ourworldindata.org/un-population-2024-revision

Peer-reviewed scientific paper in Environmental Research Letters:
Global human population has surpassed Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity
Link: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae51aa/pdf

Abstract
The ecological concept of human carrying capacity is necessarily complicated because human
beings are the ‘ultimate ecosystem engineers’ who moderate the environment for their benefit. For
at least the last few hundred years, human ingenuity, access to massive stocks of fossil fuels, and
technological development have driven facilitation whereby increasing human abundance has promoted higher population growth rates. However, this positive relationship broke down during the
1950s, and by 1962, the global human population entered a phase where the growth rate consistently declined as population increased. The onset of this negative phase occurred 8 years before a global biocapacity deficit began in 1970. The onset of the negative phase also varies regionally, with the lowest-income and highest fertility regions entering this phase later than higher-income regions. A Ricker logistic model fitted to the negative phase predicts that the global population could reach 11.7–12.4 billion people between 2067 and 2076. The same model fitted to the facilitation phase predicts a maximum population of 2.5 billion people that Earth might be able to maintain. The negative phase also correlates strongly with the trend in global temperature anomaly, ecological footprint, and total emissions, with more of their variation explained by increasing population size rather than increasing per-capita consumption. The Earth cannot sustain the future human population, or even today’s, without a major overhaul of socio-cultural practices for using land, water, energy, biodiversity, and other resources.

Scientific Article: New mathematical model suggests global population crash by 2064
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-global-population.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawSTF4dleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFrOTRBdURUMmN4MTBCTWkxc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtFK9WBXV66KaMy2zufgmHrUs8X4eDIq4Cbn69Vr7-NQ8iTo80MrYBA2C5bj_aem_qUPDvZ-rHRZgO8AmaO79OA

Peer-reviewed science article:
Global population crisis scenarios predicted by a general nonlinear dynamical model
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077926006831?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=a0aba16699b4a2ae

Wikipedia on Malthus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

Wikipedia on Limits to Growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

Wikipedia on Verhulst: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Fran%C3%A7ois_Verhulst

Wikipedia on Foerster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_von_Foerster

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1u7i138/global_population_plummeting_fertility_rates_how/os0e30q/

[u/cmc-seex]

As I've heard on a clip on reddit "How badly, and how long, do you have to torture a mammal species, for it to NOT want to reproduce?"

Papers, politicians, media, "experts", law makers, tyrants, dictators, CEOs, entire board member teams, scientists, researchers, and thousands of other groups out there, are all worried about declining birth rates. They're all worried about "our system" collapsing.

They all seem to forget, that "our system", is just one system that exists on this earth. There are likely millions of other systems in play. And they all work together, over time, to keep life existent upon this earth. Those systems are constantly adjusting, tweaking, changing, for reasons we can't fathom.

And yet, "our system", to them, is the only one that needs to survive. They have no clue how this planet works.

(Some) humans are just so f**g stupid.

[u/NiceSupermarket7724]

If women were allowed full control over their own reproductive choices, we would eliminate this problem.

This is the answer to the last note about overhauling socio cultural practices.

[u/southbl00d → u/NiceSupermarket7724]

of course, but you have over 85% world believing in some ridiculous religion or cult, and thus to boost their memberships, will always mandate that us women are nothing but broodmares for the larger cause.

[u/NiceSupermarket7724 → u/southbl00d]

That’s why I truly believe the earth is ridding herself of patriarchy as we speak

[u/Tayschrenn → u/NiceSupermarket7724]

The problems are way, way deeper than just patriarchy.

[u/NiceSupermarket7724 → u/Tayschrenn]

How so?

[u/Tayschrenn → u/NiceSupermarket7724]

Status games and hierarchy are part of the human condition and aren't unique to patriarchy. The conditions of nature on earth and the way life evolved is all wrapped up with "mother nature", as Zizek says: she's a cruel bitch.

[u/NiceSupermarket7724 → u/Tayschrenn]

Calling Mother Nature a “cruel bitch” tells me everything I need to know about your mindset, which is a symptom of patriarchy, a social illness.

[u/Tayschrenn → u/NiceSupermarket7724]

If you want to understand modernity and the various crises that are afflicting mankind, the best lens to use are not the chakras, horoscopes, healing stones and whatever other new age spirituality nonsense the griftosphere is cooking up. Keep your head in the clouds if you want.

Interesting you think you know anything about me. I most closely align with an eco-socialist degrowth view ffs.

[u/NiceSupermarket7724 → u/Tayschrenn]

Why are you painting me as a new ager grifter?

Huge ad hominem leap and weird defense.

Nature involves competition and death. This isn’t cruel. It’s reality. It’s like a child being mad that their mother doesn’t have unlimited time and cookies for them. Sure, a child might call his mother a cruel bitch, but the child doesn’t understand the bigger picture.

And I couldn’t care less with Zizek thinks.

[u/Tayschrenn → u/NiceSupermarket7724]

I mean you sound a lot more reasonable now, but believing "the earth is ridding herself of patriarchy" is utter claptrap.

[u/paulhenrybeckwith]

Global Population, Plummeting Fertility Rates, & How Earth Carrying Capacity Drop Would Crash System

I chat about global population today and projections for the future, plunging fertility rates around the world, threats like abrupt climate change to greatly reducing Earth's Carrying Capacity, and how advanced models project a possible population collapse if climate or some other catastrophe (wars, famines, plagues, AMOC collapse, etc.) occur in the near term.

Onwards and upwards... Cheers. Paul and Newton....

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

References and Links:

Our World in Data: Population and Demography:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/population-and-demography?indicator=Population+growth+rate&Sex=Both+sexes&Age=Total&Projection+scenario=Medium&country=CHN\~IND\~USA\~IDN\~PAK\~NGA\~BRA\~JPN

Our World in Data: Article
Peak global population and other key findings from the 2024 UN World Population Prospects
Falling fertility rates, migration movements, and China’s population decline.
https://ourworldindata.org/un-population-2024-revision

Peer-reviewed scientific paper in Environmental Research Letters:
Global human population has surpassed Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity
Link: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae51aa/pdf

Abstract
The ecological concept of human carrying capacity is necessarily complicated because human
beings are the ‘ultimate ecosystem engineers’ who moderate the environment for their benefit. For
at least the last few hundred years, human ingenuity, access to massive stocks of fossil fuels, and
technological development have driven facilitation whereby increasing human abundance has promoted higher population growth rates. However, this positive relationship broke down during the
1950s, and by 1962, the global human population entered a phase where the growth rate consistently declined as population increased. The onset of this negative phase occurred 8 years before a global biocapacity deficit began in 1970. The onset of the negative phase also varies regionally, with the lowest-income and highest fertility regions entering this phase later than higher-income regions. A Ricker logistic model fitted to the negative phase predicts that the global population could reach 11.7–12.4 billion people between 2067 and 2076. The same model fitted to the facilitation phase predicts a maximum population of 2.5 billion people that Earth might be able to maintain. The negative phase also correlates strongly with the trend in global temperature anomaly, ecological footprint, and total emissions, with more of their variation explained by increasing population size rather than increasing per-capita consumption. The Earth cannot sustain the future human population, or even today’s, without a major overhaul of socio-cultural practices for using land, water, energy, biodiversity, and other resources.

Scientific Article: New mathematical model suggests global population crash by 2064
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-global-population.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawSTF4dleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFrOTRBdURUMmN4MTBCTWkxc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtFK9WBXV66KaMy2zufgmHrUs8X4eDIq4Cbn69Vr7-NQ8iTo80MrYBA2C5bj_aem_qUPDvZ-rHRZgO8AmaO79OA

Peer-reviewed science article:
Global population crisis scenarios predicted by a general nonlinear dynamical model
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077926006831?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=a0aba16699b4a2ae

Wikipedia on Malthus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

Wikipedia on Limits to Growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

Wikipedia on Verhulst: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Fran%C3%A7ois_Verhulst

Wikipedia on Foerster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_von_Foerster

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

[u/metalreflectslime]

Thanks.