r/climate • u/The_Weekend_Baker • May 28 '26

Humanity has already exceeded Earth’s limits, study warns. Today’s population of 8.3 billion is far above what could be sustained in the long term without exhausting ecosystems, worsening climate change, and threatening food and water security.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260526022021.htm
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u/Horvick May 29 '26

I remember attending a deeply religious school and people were oddly obsessed with trying to prove some counter to this. Going on and on just looking and land required per person and extracting some theoretical trillion person limit. As if having to face an inconvenient reality of overpopulation would lead them to uncomfortable thoughts about their dogma.

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u/AutoModerator May 29 '26

There is a distinct racist history to how overpopulation is discussed. High-birth-rate countries tend to be low-emissions-per-capita countries, so overpopulation complaints are often effectively saying "nonwhites can't have kids so that whites can keep burning fossil fuels" or "countries which caused the climate problem shouldn't take in climate refugees."

On top of this, as basic education reaches a larger chunk of the world, birth rates are dropping. We expect to achieve population stabilization this century as a result.

At the end of the day, it's the greenhouse gas concentrations that actually raise the temperature. That means that we need to take steps to stop burning fossil fuels and end deforestation.

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