Mastodawn

I gave one of my first-year university lectures today, on biodiversity and extinction rates, in which I mention the recent population growth of the Earth's most abundant large animal species ever: us.

I still remain completely gobsmacked by the magnitude of the world's recent human population growth.

8.27 billion: today's population, according to worldometers.info.

7.2 billion: in 2015 when I started teaching the course.

6.8 billion: in 2008 when my daughter was born.

3.8 billion: in 1971 when I was born.

2.3 billion: in 1946 when my parents were born.

1.9 billion: in 1923 when my Dad’s Dad was born.

So 1.9 billion to 8.2 billion in just over a century!

I worry about whether we can sustain this many people on the planet long-term while retaining and restoring a thriving wild biosphere that supports us.

Some of us are going to have to learn to use a lot less energy and resources.

#SoManyPeople #HumanPopulation

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degenerating degenerate Feb 24

@joncounts

> learn to use a lot less energy

That's not really the case with solar. If they have a roof and the sun is generally about, there's a good chance they can generate what they need. That can be extended into the dark with a battery (which admittedly has a murkier ecological footprint if it's lithium-ion).

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MWT

@hopeless @joncounts the thing about batteries though, you only have to mine it once. After that you're good for the next 25 years, and then it gets recycled into more batteries (without more mining). With fossil fuels you have to keep mining out more of it because you use it once and then it's destroyed.