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8 billion: an overpopulation crisis?

The Naked Scientists Podcast

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The History of Expanding Population Growth

Thomas Malthus was one of the earliest to sound the alarm about population growth. He said that our ability to reproduce would go faster than more of us there are. The current rate is less than 1% a year so you're right that population growth really picked up after about 1750-1800. It was quickest in the 1960s when it was about 2.2% per year and it's actually slowed since then. Many parts of Africa still have rapidly grown populations.

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