Many demographers believe that global population will peak at 9.5 to 10 billion this century and then gradually decline as poorer countries develop. But what if they’re wrong?

The new documentary “GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth” explores why our economy and footprint and population can’t keep on expanding forever.

The world population is hitting 7 billion. But what does that really mean? In this comic, we unpack some of the numbers and nuances. Click the image below to view the comic, and then click on each page to go to the next one: For those without javascript enabled, here are links to each page: 7 Billion, Unpacked Behind the Numbers The Good News Room for Improvement What Goes Down Can Look Up So What Can You Do? Or you can download and read the comic as a PDF. Written by Lisa Hymas. Illustrated by Thomas Pitilli. Lettering and headers …

Let’s leave some room for everybody else. Photo: Robin PittmanMore of our kind means fewer wild things. A stabilized human population means hope for wild things. A shrinking human population means a better world for wild things — and for men and women and children. It’s that straightforward. The human population grew more in the last 40 years than in the previous 3 million. The population bomb has blown up — but the shrapnel hasn’t yet hit us hard. What it has hit hard are wild things. The outcomes of humanity’s growth yesterday, today, and tomorrow are scalped wildlands, endangered …

The United Nations says that the world’s population will reach 7 billion people this month. The approach of that milestone has produced a wave of articles and opinion pieces blaming the world’s environmental crises on overpopulation. In New York’s Times Square, a huge and expensive video declares that “human overpopulation is driving species extinct.” In London’s busiest Underground stations, electronic poster boards warn that 7 billion is ecologically unsustainable. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich’s bestseller The Population Bomb declared that as a result of overpopulation, “the battle to feed humanity is over,” and the 1970s would be a time of global …

In the U.S., many population groups try to smooth over controversy, preferring to highlight areas of broad agreement, such as making birth control universally accessible, educating girls, and empowering women. By contrast, the British group Population Matters (formerly Optimum Population Trust) tries to stir up controversy. It recently chided David and Victoria Beckham for adding a fourth child to their jet-setting brood, and the group has rankled some in the population movement by promoting PopOffsets, a program that lets you “offset” your family’s carbon footprint by funding family planning elsewhere. I talked to Roger Martin, chair of Population Matters, about …

Sandeep Bathala and Carmen BarrosoJoin a Grist live chat on population issues on Monday, Oct. 31, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern / 10:00 a.m. Pacific, marking the occasion of the world population hitting 7 billion. We’ll have two experts on hand to answer your questions: Sandeep Bathala of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, formerly director of the Sierra Club’s population program; and Carmen Barroso, director of International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region. The chat will be moderated by Grist Senior Editor and Queen of Pop(ulation) Lisa Hymas. Ask questions in the box below, or tweet your questions to …

Photo: TakverIn the late ’90s, environmental activist and author Bill McKibben wrote a book about his and his wife’s decision to have only one child, connecting their personal choice to global issues of population growth and sustainability. These days, McKibben is intently focused on fighting climate change, kick-starting a clean energy revolution, and, as a means to both ends, stopping the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar-sands crude 1,700 miles down the middle of the U.S. In an interview earlier this month, Leo Hickman of The Guardian asked him about all of these issues. Here’s what McKibben had …

Now that we’re surrounded by 7 billion of our closest friends, it’s probably a good time to talk about how we’re going to feed them. The government, along with corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, and others who are part of our current industrial agriculture system, will tell you that feeding the world is all about more. More yield from crops, more chemicals, more fertilizer, more genetically engineered seeds. More, more, more! Of course, it’s easy to say that when you’re willing, as they are, to ignore the health effects, climate and environmental impacts, resource constraints, and every other real world …