The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year’s Day it will stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

The worldwide growth rate in the past year was just under 1%. At the start of 2024, 4.3 births and two deaths are expected worldwide every second, according to the Census Bureau figures.

The growth rate for the United States in the past year was 0.53%, about half the worldwide figure. The U.S. added 1.7 million people and will have a population on New Year’s Day of 335.8 million people.

        • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          All the most habitable spots are already taken. The only spots left have major disadvantages.

          You can’t just ‘spread out’ all the people. It doesn’t work that way. Not everyone wants to live on a cliffside road in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, or wherever. Nor is it advantageous in any way to do so.

        • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          All the efficiencies for transportation and infrastructure are possible because of big cities. One of the biggest contributors to us getting climate change under control will be our ability to leverage the most amount of green energy policies for the least amount of resources.

        • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Which would require far more energy to support. Concentration means easier logistics, less transportation, and less overall resources required

    • CompostMaterial@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      To put in perspective, the population in 1980 was about 4.5bln. So we could erase almost half the global population and still have a workforce like 1980. 8 BILLION is way more than ever needed to exist (at the same time).