http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/241864.stm
I could not find a reliable source on what the estimates were outside of Europe unfortunately, but I have no reason to expect that it was much higher.
I understand it is skewed a bit because something like 50% of the population died before the age 3. Women died in high numbers from 14 to 35 ( child birth ) etc. If you did make it to 30 you had a decent chance of living until your 50's. There was a small elderly class that was almost universally made up of Nobles and various elites.
Still seeing as my most recent ancestors are European that's where my focus is. It is very possible that tribal peoples would be higher, again if they made it past childhood and didn't die while giving birth.
Ok the issues of water contamination aside from fluoride or industrial waste due to the evils of Capitalists, those in cities did have a hard time with drinking water, and of course contamination due to human waste ( no indoor plumbing obviously ) was a major concern. Rates of dysentery and cholera are lower now than then and virtually nil in developed countries today. I agree with you that there are serious problems with pesticides and pollution and fracking chemicals.
I know three personally ( one is my sister who would be dead if she lived 150 years ago from pregnancy complications let alone longer than that ).
Here are world population estimates, believe them or not its been an explosion since modern medicine
http://www.ecology.com/population-estimates-year-2050/
( in millions )
1910 AD
1,750
1920 AD
1,860
1930 AD
2,070
1940 AD
2,300
1950 AD
2,557
1960 AD
3,042
1970 AD
3,712
1980 AD
4,453
1990 AD
5,291
2000 AD
6,094
Most of us would have been serfs its just the way it is even then its worse to be an oppressor than the oppressed (pretty sure that's in the Bible somewhere )
Anyway great conversation and in a few hours ill be hitting the road for work and wont be back on the forums until April. Take care.
People may be living into their 80s and 90s but what is the point when you are afflicted with debilitating illnesses: alzheimers/dementia, diabetes, heart disease, cancer et al. Someone once said that we no longer die off “naturally”, you die from a disease. Apart from novel things such as DNA, MRIs, improved plastic surgery techniques etc, what is “modern medicine”?
All this talk about a looming population explosion is just fearmongering and doesn’t match with reality. First of all, its not feasible in the current climate (gmos, pesticides, declining sperm counts, austerity, 5G, etc). If there’s already too many of us and that is the purported sole reason for climate change, why are governments which are tasked with implementing climate change policies, incentivizing procreation? China, a year or two ago, revised its one child policy. I recently saw something about Hungary’s policies (and its not just Hungary): incentives to stem the falling birth rate. So it doesn’t add up. If the 7 billion is too much, governments would be acting otherwise.
War is another method of depopulation. Primarily, that is people getting killed but there is also death from the effects of the war such as munitions used, which is hardly taken into account. Iraq, for example
'General Tommy Franks, the man in charge of the initial invasion, bluntly told reporters, “We don’t do body counts.” One survey found that most Americans thought Iraqi deaths were in the tens of thousands. But our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion.'
Factor in the number of deaths from illnesses caused by DU munitions and the effect on neighbouring countries.
^^^but the
"breeders are storming Europe's gates", as commonly said.
"Iran has one of the highest declines of fertility in the world, from 8+ children per woman before Chernobyl in 1986, to less than two children per woman by 2002, and continuing to decline over the past decade.
The astounding increase in Iranian deaths in 2006-07, was 3.6 million, a seemingly inexplained 4.7% drop in population in a single year. In the same time period many thousands of camels died throughout the Middle East and North Africa, 5,000 alone in Saudi Arabia and no known cause.
Such a catastrophic and acute phenomenon in both humans and animals indicates an environmental cause . Forensic evidence is now emerging that Iran has been the target of a covert nuclear war since 1990, carried out by the US and the UK from Iraq and Afghanistan."
Edit: i wouldn't be surprised if we checked the Iraqi census data and it registered a population increase. How that would be when the number of the dead is doctored/not releasing the correct, clearly high figures, is up to anyone to guess.