November 15th, 2022, is the date that demographers estimate humanity hit a new threshold: a global population of more than eight billion people, with population growth expected to continue climbing for the next 60 years. According to a recent report from the United Nations, the global population "could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050, before reaching a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s."
The jump from seven to eight billion only took 12 years — perhaps astonishing given that it took roughly 300,000 years of human history to hit our first billion, in 1804, the same year morphine was first isolated from opium and the steam locomotive was invented. An estimated 109 billion people have ever lived on Earth, and about seven percent of all humans who have ever lived are alive today.
