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"The low variant projection - historically the most accurate - calls for population to peak in 2040 at 7.5 billion people, up only slightly from today's 6.3 billion," Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute wrote in his weekly briefing (22 Dec. 2003), commenting on a U.N. Population Division report. "This year's revision to the UNPD's World Population Prospects includes special long range projections. Population will spiral downward to only 2.3 billion by 2300. The world of tomorrow will resemble 'Old Europe' of today - graying, aged and dying..." "Not that the UNDP got it all right. The UNDP's 'median variant' projection, the focus of most of the press coverage, rosily called for population to peak at 9.1 billion in 2100 and then remain almost stable for the next two centuries. But these numbers are premised on the wildly optimistic assumption that global fertility rates will bottom out at 1.85 children per woman. "In the regal language of the report, '1.85 per woman represents a floor value below which the total fertility of high and medium-fertility countries is not allowed to drop before 2050.' Again, 1.85 is a floor below which total fertility 'is not allowed to drop'. No rationale is given for this limitation. "The 'medium fertility assumption' also shows Europe's fertility rebounding from its current 1.35 children, mysteriously climbing to the required 1.85 by 2050 . . . Fertility rates in nature, or course, do not rise or fall simply because a demographic model so dictates. In the real world Europe's fertility rates continue to crash."
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