On November 15th of 2022, the Earth reached the population milestone of 8 billion people. Monumental of a number as it is, researchers wanted to explore what this means for the present and for the future. Numbers-wise, In North America, the USA has the lead in population growth with a total of 338 million; In South America, Brazil has the lead with 215 million; Russia takes the European lead with a total of 145 million; For Asia, China tops the chart with 1.4 billion people. In Africa, Nigeria has the highest population with 219 million, finishing off in Oceania with Indonesia clocking in at 280 million people. Comparing their population numbers from last year this means that we are growing in population by 0.83% a year.
Even though the world’s population is growing and we just passed the 8 billion people marker, that doesn’t mean that every country is growing at the same rate. It doesn’t even mean that every country is growing. In fact, some countries are actually losing their population. Global life expectancy has grown from 29 years to 73 years since 1800, indicating better global health and an older world population As life expectancy grows in a country, it’s common for the fertility rate to decrease. Globally, life expectancy has grown from 29 to 73 years since 1800. This is but a small fraction of unraveling the big picture about the Earth.
