"the population has been exploding. Exponentially." Is this reflecting a 1980s claim, or is this supposed to be a result of current science? In either case, what's the exponent? 2? 1? 0.5? This sounds more like rhetoric than science. The UN said (see this NPR story at npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s…) that, based on current trends, the world population will peak in about 60 years and that many countries already have a birth rate below the replacement level. If those UN statements are correct, then the population isn't growing exponentially or even arithmetically (doubling, for example).