Blythe Terrell

So in the U.S., it's 1.62.

As of right now, it's 2.2 worldwide.

So it's above that replacement level.

Yeah, at this moment.

But pretty consistently, it's going down.

And so people are like, oh, even though at a global level, it's above this 2.1 replacement level right now, people are like, oh, well, it's probably going to go down if that's what it's been doing for decades.

And so scientists do estimate that global population will peak in maybe like 60 years and then start to fall.

Like that is what current estimates do show.

So is that good news?

You know, that's a great question because, like, actually, even just talking about this out in the world, as you know I am, whenever I bring this up to people, they're like, oh, population might be going down.

Like, isn't that good?

Good for the environment.

Fewer people using up resources, spewing out trash, greenhouse gases, like all the crap that humans are currently doing.

But a lot of scientists are like, actually, it's a little more complicated than that.

They don't really think that this is going to be a climate solution.

And that's basically because the population isn't expected to actually drop soon enough to like really reverse our climate problems, like to actually have as big of an impact as it would need to have to sort of save our asses.

That is exactly what people say.

Okay.

That does make sense.

So it's not going to fix climate, scientists argue, to have fewer people, to have lower birth rates.