The mysterious statisticians shaping how we think about fertility

ss: Experts, Could they be wrong about underpopulation now?

Humans have always tried to glimpse the future. Until recently, the fear had not been too few humans, but too many.

National leaders are now confronting a question that would have been unthinkable a century ago: What if we don’t have enough people? How many people will be alive 50 years from now? In 100 or, even 200?

Some longer-range forecasts, out to 2200 or 2300, paint a portrait of a dying species.

Population figures are also a core component of any climate change forecast

According to one estimate, carbon emissions would be more than 40 percent lower by 2100 if the world’s population fell to 7 billion than if it continued to grow to 15 billion — roughly the full range of the UN’s global projections.

You can technically read projections for the year 2300, which paint a dire picture of humanity’s future.

Now we’re back to asking the age-old question: How do we get more people? Solve those problems, their thinking goes, and you might see future populations rebound.

It is, in a way, a reminder that population forecasters are human beings, contemplating their own species’s future. Their projections may tell us the path we’re headed on now — but they cannot tell us how humanity will respond. That will ultimately be up to us.

Lately, there have been tiny signs of progress: South Korea saw an uptick in births for the first time in 10 years.

Anyone following this should look up behavior sink and recognize that humans are mammals and we model lots of behavior on mice.

Luckily mice don’t go to church or no doubt we’d be toast