Fact or Fiction: Living People Outnumber the Dead?
Since the 1970’s there has been a ‘fact’ or statement thrown around, without evidence, to highlight the overpopulation issues many urban areas and some nations face. This myth stated that the number of people alive on the planet today outnumber the combined total of all dead people aggregated throughout mankind’s history.
Since the planet is sustaining approximately 6.5 billion people today, then this would mean that in the previous 50,000 years less than 6.5 billion people have ever lived and died. That seems reasonable, right?
Not true, says demographer Carl Haub. According to his research, slightly over 106 billion people had ever been born, significantly more than the 6.5 billion alive today.
[Found via Kottke.org]
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