BIOLOGY - Environment - Global population growth

From about 2 million years ago until 13,000 years ago there were several human species inhabiting the earth. In fact, 100,000 years ago there were at least 6 different human species! Today there’s just us: Homo sapiens. In this video we’re going to look at some of the key moments in our population growth, and what the future looks like. Our species, Homo sapiens, first evolved about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. And slowly started out-competing our human cousins. And about 13,000 years ago our final cousins went extinct. During the past 200,000 years we’ve grown from 1 person to the 7.5 billion today. Homo sapiens’ population started to boom about 70,000 years ago, driving the other human species to extinction. Our ancestors conquered all corners of the earth and started inventing impressive objects. The most widely accepted explanation for our ancestors rapid success is a huge improvement in our language abilities, and therefore communication and ability to share information. 12,000 years ago, at the dawn of agriculture, there were about 5 million people alive. Our ancestors started farming some plant and animal species, to provide them with a reliable supply of energy. This changed how we lived. People settled permanently around the fields, and population began to grow much more quickly than ever before. We took 2 million years to reach 5 million people, and then 10,000 years to reach 1 billion people. And that’s nothing compared to what was to come! 200 years ago, the global population was about 1 billion people. Now we’re at a huge 7.5 billion today. And still, every year, there are 83 million more people living on this planet. That’s the population of all of Germany!