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GetOffMyLawn1729 t1_jdyimvu wrote

Reply to comment by patman_007 in Estimates suggest population growth rate to peak at 8.6 billion by madrid987

no, that is what the headline says, but the first sentence in the article reads "A new projection of the population growth rate highlights that the world’s population could peak at 8.5 billion people by 2050, and decline to 7 billion in 2100".

The person writing the headline is an idiot made a very basic mistake. As others have said, at the point the population reaches its maximum, the rate of change will be 0.

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patman_007 t1_jdzxfql wrote

The article flips back and forth. But looking at some other info it is the population that will peak, not the growth rate.

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turd_vinegar t1_je0t6kh wrote

Growth rate should peak and decline before population peaks. Unless there is some cataclysmic event that drives it down suddenly, like a nuclear war.

Someone could argue that there is a time interval that when tracked in nano seconds displays a sudden drop in growth rate before those hypothetical millions perished, but this is more pedantic than practical and wouldn't give much insight into how society was changing at that time.

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turd_vinegar t1_je0s54q wrote

There is a discrete aspect both in time and in number of humans (not to mention non-linearities to rates due to catastrophes) so it might not be exactly 0 over some time interval, but yes, there should be some identifiable relative maxima in population near rate ~0.

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Mydickradiates t1_je4rkne wrote

I don't know, the word highlights means the growth rate is implied resulting in the peak count of 8.5 billion people. I think you people are being super picky

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