Human Population Stabilizes

Despite the wringing of hands on TheBottleneck, the exponential growth of human population peaked in 1987. That year 87.01 million more people were added to the Earth. Since 1987, global population growth declined on average by 2.1 million less people added per year. In 2000 the population increased by 60.1 million people.

The decline of human population growth accellerated in the late 20th century. 1994 we added 78.5 million more people, in 2000 60.1 million - a decline of 3 million less people added per year.

When demographers from the United Nation's did their biennial update of world population numbers in October of 1998 they reduced their projected average population for 2050 from 9.4 billion to 8.9 billion. They also reduced their low number, saying we will reach zero population growth in 2038 @ 7.47 billion.

However, more recently, this trend has not proved to be stable. The world population passed 7 billion in 2012. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts a world population of 7.1 billion by July of 2013, an increase of 77 million from July of 2012.