Slg0102 World population

Research note on how many people we are on Earth, and the facts experts gather, like where we live, how old we get and more

The estimates of the future world population is more uncertain

Text and drawing by Frits Ahlefeldt

In year 1800 we were around 2 billion people on Earth, in year 2000 that number had grown to around 6 billions, and since then we’ve become another 2 billion more people on Earth, so we are now more than 8 billion here.

But since then the growth has diminished, and the experts are now more and more in doubt on how the next years will be.

Some believe we will catapult ourselves into a new era, as innovation increase and new technologies change most of what we understand, or what is possible.

But at the same time more and more of the resources we depend on, and planetary boundaries (wikipedia link) we live within are broken, as our more and more demanding ways of living are putting a still more intense pressure on the remaining known resources here.

It seems like a race, where anything can happen, and nobody can agree what is most likely.

It is something I do my best to research and make drawn journalism about, both our chances, and how we can make them better.The drawings can be seen in my illustration collection, with special collections on Climate Change, The environment and Thrive