Talk:Population growth

message: Article tends to emphasizes the short term, which causes the "wealthy" countries to appear least responsible for population growth.  Note that the U.S. Population Growth over last 100 years = 1.22% per year average or 336% total growth. The World Population Growth over last 100 years = 1.38 % per year average or 394% total.  Not much of a difference. Despite what perpetual growth and religious people want to believe, we have a population problem nearly everywhere. 108.74.220.143 (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: U.S. vs. World

message: The formula makes no sense at all to me. Compare with this:
X = Y * 100\% = Y * 100 / 100 = Y
Am I wrong with this? If not, then the formula given in the article simply states that Population growth ratio is the same as its rate, which is certainly not the case.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.6.194.168 (talk) 13:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: About: Population growth rate & ratio

message: We supposedly ""Evolved"" around a 100 000 years ago ...........  look at the graph and be logical . If we evolved 100 000 years ago our population would be absolutley ginormous . Working it back the human population has been growing only a few thousand years. Look at the graph or do the logarithmic calculations quickly (ok granted your calculations won't be perfect but they'll give you a ball park figure) Certianly doesn't look like a hundred thousand years to me. Rather supports a flood 4400 years ago.  (Paladin)
I suppose so, but it is a big leap without any supporting evidence.  A higher death rate in early populations would also account for the difference.  There are many variables in the human growth curve to consider.
Gah4 (talk) 16:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Article talk pages exist solely to disuss the article, not the topic. If you guys would like to discuss this topic there are numerous forums, chat rooms, and other venues. -Will Beback · † · 18:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: OT commentary

message: world population get? How will the transition from current rapid growth phase to a sustainable stable phase occur? Will this be an easy or difficult transition? -- Huysmantalk| contribs 22:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future [[World Population]] 

message: The citation request on this assertion: "It has been proposed by many that population growth, if not controlled, could lead to a situation where demands for resources outstrip their ready availability (i.e., overpopulation).[citation needed]"<BR>
is unneeded. It's completely obvious after a moment's thought. In fact, the original statement is too timid. If you have 500 people a day crowded around a well that can supply water for 200 people a day, you've got a problem. This is not a theory, it's simple common sense. So, rather than a citation, the article should be expanded to include a little basic logic about fruit-fly-type scenarios.
Hi, as an economist on development I may say common sense is not always the best way to proof a statement. I know it is hard to accept but the same happened to me some time ago. Just a couple of references for you and for those who want to think out of the 'imposed' box: 'The Ultimate Resource 2" by Julian Simon, 1996 () and 'The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World' by Bjørn Lomborg [there is an article in Wikipedia].  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.145.140.211 (talk) 08:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unnecessary citation request 

message: I noticed "natural increase" redirects to this page. It should have its own page because it does not include migration. So really, a country's population growth and natural increase can be quite different, such as in Canada, where more of the population growth is actually from immigration. 69.158.163.223 20:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural Increase 

message: The first graph should be logarithmic. — Omegatron 21:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that the graph is logarithmic, I think it is a bad idea.  (a) Common readers of wikipedia, including those such as high school students and even most adults, do not understand logarithmic graphics properly.  (b) for most people this gives the impression of gradual and almost stable growth, whereas the non-logarithmic version would make such an impression impossible.   Use of a logarithmic graph is almost a misleading use of the information in this case, such as would be used by those attempting to downplay the fact and affect of human population growth. --GGG65 (talk) 18:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I disagree that a logarithmic scale is inappropriate. I don't know where the old graph is now, but the differences in population growth in diffeent continents would be hard to discern in a non-log graph. Perhaps your concerncould be addressed better by simply swapping the position of the two graphs, placing the non-logarithmic graph first. That would convey the message of geometric growth.   Will Beback  talk   20:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

text: It seems to be extremely difficult to really understand exponential growth.  Anything that will help people understand it should be done.  In the Dilbert comic strip some months ago, there was one where one of Dilbert's coworkers was going to a seminar where he would be told how to turn $100 into $1,000,000.  At the seminar, he is told to invest the $100 at 10% interest for 97 years.  I went to my calculator to check it out, and yes it works.  (Now that banks are paying 1% if we are lucky.)   I suppose having both graphs is best.  People have to learn to use logarithmic graphs, and still understand the results of exponential growth.  Gah4 (talk) 20:53, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The use of a Logarithmic graph in this case is not merely extremely unhelpful, it is deceptive, and its placement at the top of the article seems to serve an  intention to mislead. The shallow curve of the line creates an impression of gradual growth, whereas actual population growth in the period from 1950 to the present was unprecedentedly dramatic. Logarithmic graphs are useful and appropriate in technical analyses, in which  one who is well-aquainted with a particular subject  (a specialist) would presume an exponential increase in a set of statistics, Thus is most certainly not the case with an encyclopedia article on world population growth; The objective here is to represent the information on the subject in the clearest terms possible for the average person, If you feel thatthe role of Wikipedia is to popularise specialist terms in by using them in non-specialist articles, please take a look at What Wikipedia is not, specifically Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal. This graph should be removed, and replaced with a non-logarythmic one immediately. 
WaynaQhapaq (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thinking about this again, a log graph isn't so useful.  What would be useful is a graph of the growth constant, which is the derivative of the log graph. The use for a log graph is to identify exponential growth, but we already know that. The question left is how fast it is growing exponentially. Another possibility, though I don't think is as good, is a graph of doubling time, reciprocal of growth rate. This would be in addition to the non-log exponential growth graph. Gah4 (talk) 00:29, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

text: I have removed that graph. The x-axis tic marks are not evenly-spaced in time. The y-axis values near 1 AD don't agree with the linear graph. Spiel496 (talk) 18:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graph 

message: "However, the world's fastest growing race are Hispanic/Latino origin, who make up 44% of the world's population growth per year..."
What exactly is the purpose of this statement?  Considering that "race" itself is a dubious concept, and that "Hispanic/Latino race" a completely unrecognized one in serious scholarship, the statement seem to have been inserted by a US anti-immigrant nativist.  I am removing it.
199.115.9.254 20:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Hispanic Race" 

message: There isn't a single thing in here about the causes of population growth, or the effects. There is a very small piece on the causes and effects of the shrinking population in some areas, but not a thing about the causes and effects of actual population growth. There's nothing about how there's a theory that it's affecting global warming, or anything else. Stars in the Night Sky 19:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, population growth comes from people having too many kids.  Global warming isn't really caused by population growth, but by out excessive use of natural resources.  However, the only solution to global warming and running out of cheap energy sources is population control.  Time for the world, especially the US, to work on slowing the growth rate.  Gah4 (talk) 10:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

text: That's because there's currently no explanation for it, as far as I can tell.  Wikipedia has a no-original-research policy, and so I can't say anything about it on the actual article; but, to answer your burning curiosity, it's a matter of economics, which I can only cover crudely in brief.  If you look at the Green Revolution, you'll notice an increase in rice production from 2 tonnes per hectare to 6 tonnes per hectare.  This means the same land can support more people; counter to the incorrect Land Value Tax theory, this is a matter of labor:  the same or fewer people can support proportionally more people.  Let's say your fertile land supports 1000 people with the work of 10, and the next chunk of land is rocky and has half the yield with twice the labor invested; if you add 1000 more people to your population, you need 40 of them--not 10--to work the rocky soil to make enough food.  Keep scaling out like this and you get the root of scarcity:  more labor needed to produce the necessary goods to meet demand, until every one laborer is producing less than the supply required to feed one laborer.  As you pass the point of linear growth (2x as much production requires 2x as much labor), goods become expensive, and people become more poor, limiting population.  This is, of course, well-past modern economic theory, and so should in no way be merged into any Wikipedia article. --John Moser (talk) 15:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Causes & Effects

message: Existing sentence:
:When population growth can exceed the carrying capacity of an area or environment the results end with overpopulation. 
It's not the growth that can exceed the carrying capacity, it's the population itself.  I'm not sure how to edit it, though.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How about: Overpopulation is population exceeding carrying capacity. It may be caused by growth in population or by reduction in capacity.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 09:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: #  The article mentions the calculations for growth rate and ratio, but never plugs in the current data.  Apparently the growth ratio is about 1% per year.  What are the long-term implications of such a growth rate?  The article basically stops at the year 2050.  While the rate beyond 2050 is not easy to accurately project, certain mathematical truths should be mentioned.  For instance, with a 1% growth rate, the world population doubles every 70 years (from 100 x ln2).  That means if the world population in 2010 is 8 billion, then in 2080 it would be 16 billion, and in 2150, it would be 32 billion.  In 2220, it would be 64 billion.  Obviously, the growth rate of 1% cannot be maintained for 200 more years, as the world population would be 8 times what it is today, and our resources are already seriously tapped.  While we don't know what the population will be, we DO KNOW that the growth rate WILL HAVE TO drop to nearly zero within in the next 200 years.
# The world population graph done is SVG leaves a lot to  be desired, for a couple of reasons:  a) Aesthetically it is not very pleasing as charts go.  It lacks good labels and color.  b) The range of the last 12,000 years is not statistically significant.  All the important information is in the last two thousand years ... growth before 0 BCE was minimal.  Lumping all the data at the very end of the chart compresses it to the point where it is hard to extrapolate any accurate figure for any year in the last two thousand years.   The graph should be modified to include a tear or torn edge at about 8000 BCE, then come back in with the data at around 2000 BCE.  Aaron hoffmeyer (talk) 22:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Several things 

message: Just responding to the notice about Tone or Style, as a person who googled for this specific topic, what I was looking for was "World population" and the estimates over the centuries.
I think this article at the moment mentions "carrying capacity" / overpopulation too early; and this article should discuss theories on causes of population effect instead of "overpopulation" that already has its own article title.
All best. :)
122.106.228.67 (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone or Style 

message: The growth rate formula should be of the form k = \frac{ P(t_2)  -  P(t_1)} {P(t_1)*(t_2-t_1) }.  Also, as stated above by 222.6.194.168, the formula "growth ratio = 100%*growth rate" is meaningless to me.  What is intended by this statement? Spiel496 (talk) 07:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted some years ago, but only added "for sufficiently small time period" to the equation, that is not correct.  You really want: k = \frac{ \ln(P(t_2))  -  \ln(P(t_1))} {(t_2-t_1)}.  In the limit t_2 -->  t_1 it equals the formula you show, but not in general. As it seems that someone now removed my addition, I am close to changing the formula.  Gah4 (talk) 00:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The Red-Blue plot shows population growth rate to be a roughly linear function of time. How is this reflected in the growth rate formulas? What is the basis for the initial assumption that population growth is exponential? Virgil H. Soule (talk) 22:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  growth rate formulas 

message: Hello, the book Introduction to Geography by Getis & Getis talks about population momentum. This article does not mention this momentum effect that increases population well into the future despite slowing of growth to the replacement level. This effect should be mentioned in the article, because without it people will think that decline to the replacement will be okay and all problems are solved. --212.226.66.147 (talk) 07:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population momentum 

message: In the table in the section "1960s to 2010 table of population growth" Australia's population is indicated "23,215,635[37] (2010)" - which is garbage. On the indicated source it is indicated per 26/03/2013, 12:00 hrs. it is indicated as 22,960,198. The maintainer of the table will please revise the issue. Thank you. 121.216.246.119 (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population Australia 

message: To account for the linear growth rate trend shown in the Red-Blue graph, the Malthus model must modified as follows:
:\frac{ dP} {P } = ( r_0  + r_t t ) dt
Where  P  is population,  t  is time,  r_0  is the population change rate at some reference time,  Y_0 , and  r_t  is the slope of the rate curve. Integrating and applying limits: 
: \ln ( P / P_0 ) = ( r_0 + r_t t /2 ) t 
Where  P_0  is population at the reference time,  Y_0 .
: P=P_0 e^{ ( r_0 + r_t t /2 ) t }
Referring to the Red-Blue graph,
:  Y_0 = 2010
:  P_0 = 6,896,000,000 
:  r_0 = 0.0115 per yr 
:  r_t = -0.000165 per yr^2 
The time at which  r = 0  is
:  t = -r_0 / r_t = 70 yr 
The maximum population will occur in 2010 + 70 or 2080 and
:maximum  P = 10.3 billion .
Virgil H. Soule (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malthus model with linear growth rate 

message: Living matter remains remains fairly constant, I once read, but human population growth progressively transforms more and more of that into human flesh.t I don't know enough about the subject to do a proper search for a reference, much less if any other editor would think it pertinent.   —Pawyilee (talk) 10:31, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Living matter 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Regarding this revert: the content removed from the lede was non-neutrally presented and poorly sourced. Some of these issues are hopefully obvious, but one example is that lone source was the CIA factbook entry for Barbados cited for information on Chad. Regardless, the source makes no reference to the country's population change being itself noteworthy, or caused by anything noteworthy. It also does not use any scare-mongering or editorialize on vaguely Malthusian fears of "straining resources". Please do not restore this again. 
Population growth is complicated, but if this specific "fear" somehow belongs in the lede of this article, instead of at human overpopulation where it logically belongs, it would need to be a neutral summary of specific, reliable sources, not WP:SYNTH based on context-free factoids. Grayfell (talk) 07:48, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert to older version to remove non-neutral editorializing 

message: *
Can we use this a citation in the article, rather than have it in external links?--Buzles (talk) 07:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  CNN and BBC reports 

message: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-growth-rates?tab=chart&time=1950..2030&country=~OWID_WRL ″Data published by United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects: The 2019 Revision, DVD Edition.″
Link	https://population.un.org/wpp2019/Download/Standard/Interpolated/
vs
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.pop.grow
″Population growth (annual %)
Derived from total population. Population source: ( 1 ) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision, ( 2 ) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, ( 3 ) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, ( 4 ) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Report ( various years ), ( 5 ) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and ( 6 ) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.″
License : CC BY-4.0  
Or is the UN 2019 Revision alone all of that and national sources being distracting noises because of the reasoning "a unitary, global organization can coordinate those data better"?
I assume the more legitimate sources the better for World Bank. Charles.enb.cdefgh (talk)
Adding: Introduction shows "peak of 2.2% per year in 1963." [Roser, Max; Ritchie, Hannah; Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban (2013-05-09). "World Population Growth". Our World in Data.](Data sources: US Census Bureau & Projections: U. N. Pop. Divi. {Medium Variant 2015 Revision} & https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-the-world-population-growth-rate-changed too even through theres´s a Population Division (2019). Why? Cren182 (talk) 09:19, 04 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population growth (annual %). World Bank says peak was 1971 instead  19.01.2022 Wikipedia´s UN Re. source 1968/69 & has more sources including United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision  14:35, 19 January 2022 (UTC)