The world has reached a somewhat     1     (worry) demographic (人口统计学的) milestone. A spokesperson said the U. S. Census Bureau (人口统计局) estimated that the     2     (globe) population surpassed 8 billion on the 26th of September.     3    , he said this was a very rough guess and the precise day could be a month or two either side of this date. The world population had doubled between 1960 and 2000, and     4     (grow) from 6 billion to 8 billion in the past two decades. The rate of growth is slowing     5     birth rates are falling in many nations.

According to the Census Bureau, trends of longer lifespans and lower birth rates result     6     the slowdown in population growth. However, it forecast that the population would reach 10. 2 billion in 2060. It said: “The world population is projected to keep growing despite     7     (decline) birth rates. In fact, we estimate     8     number of infants already peaked in 2017. Instead, population growth in the future will come from larger groups of people at adult ages.” It added: “Population growth is the result of birth rates, mortality (死亡率), migration and the share of the population at certain ages. Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of the earth’s population     9     (resident) in countries     10     birth rates are around or below the replacement level.”

2 . Are you the only child in your family? If so, do you enjoy it or do you want more siblings（兄弟姐妹）?

On May 31, a key meeting of the Communist Party of China unveiled a policy that would allow all couples to have up to three children.

The move is expected to maximize the population's role in driving economic and social growth, since this is a critical time for China to transform the world's most populous country into a powerhouse（强国）with a quality workforce, according to the National Health Commission.

The three-child policy is also expected to prevent the decline in the nation's birthrate and address the challenge of a rapidly aging population, China Daily reported.

China's annual number of newborns has fallen for four years in a row. The country's total birthrate—the average number of children born to each woman—stood at 1.3 in 2020. The number is below the rate of 2.1 that would maintain a stable population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The declining birthrate has also brought a sharp increase in the proportion of the population aged 60 or above, rising from 10.3 percent to 18.7 percent in the past decade. An increasingly elderly population will increase the cost of labor and the pressure on the social security net. It also means there will be a lack of young labor force. Therefore, it's not good for economic growth, according to Chen Youhua, a professor at Nanjing University.

In fact, the new birth policy is a step to further relax the family planning policy. The one-child policy was introduced in the 1970s and aimed to control the fast-growing population. Then in 2013, China allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child, and in 2016, all couples were allowed to have two children.

However, not all people have shown their support for this latest policy. Many couples complained about the rising costs of raising a child. A netizen named Qinfeng commented, "High cost of education and both the physical and mental exhaustion stopped me from having more than one child." Also, many women are reluctant（不情愿的）to give birth because that could mean sacrificing their career prospects, according to Mu Guangzong, a professor at Peking University.

In that case, Mu noted that it is better to implement supporting measures with the three-child policy, such as more preferential（优惠的）policies for couples that would ease their parental burden.

3 . Falling birth rates are a major concern for some of Asia’s biggest economies. Government s in the region are spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reverse the trend. Will it work?

Japan began introducing policies to encourage couples to have more children in the 1990s. South Korea started doing the same in the 2000s, while Singapore’s first fertility (生育) policy dates back to 1987. China, which has seen its population fall for the first time in 60 years, recently joined the growing club.

While it is difficult to quantify exactly how much these policies have cost, South Korean President YoonSuk-yeol recently said his country had spent more than $200bn (£160bn) over the past 16 years on trying to boost the population. Yet last year South Korea broke its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate, with the average number of babies expected per woman falling to 0.78. In neighbouring Japan, which had record low births of fewer than 800,000 last year, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has promised to double the budget for child-related policies from 10tn yen ($74.7bn; £59.2bn).

Having a bigger population who can work and produce more goods and services leads to higher economic growth. And while a larger population can mean higher costs for governments, it can also result in bigger tax revenues (税收). Also, many Asian countries are ageing rapidly. Japan leads the pack with nearly 30% of its population now over the age of 65 and some other nations in the region are not far behind. Compare that with India, which has just overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation. More than a quarter of its people are between the age of 10 and 20, which gives its economy huge potential for growth. And when the share of the working age population gets smaller, the cost and burden of looking after the non-working population grow. “Negative population growth has an impact on the economy, and together with an ageing population, they won’t be able to afford to support the elderly,” said Xiujian Peng of Victoria University.

The global population is expected to have reached 8 billion by the end of 2022, and India is predicted to surpass (超越) China as the country     1     the largest population in 2023, according to the United Nations.

“This is an occasion to celebrate our     2     (diverse) and recognize our common humanity,” said UN Secretary Antonio. “At the same time, it is     3     reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on     4     we can do to one another,” he added.

The world population     5     (grow) at its slowest rate at the present time and it is forecast to reach a peak of around 10. 4 billion people during the 2080s and to remain at that level until 2100. Rapid population growth makes     6     (defeat) hunger and expanding the coverage of health and education systems increasingly difficult.

Countries with aging populations should take steps     7     (adapt) public programs to the growing numbers of older persons,     8     includes establishing universal health care and long-term care systems. Further actions by governments     9     (aim) at reducing birth rate would have little impact on the pace of population growth between now and mid-century, because of the youthful age structure of today’s     10     (globe) population.

5 . In the early 1970s, a computer program called World One predicted that civilization would likely collapse in the near future.

When deciding the fate of civilization, the program considered the following variables: pollution, population, the availability of natural resources and global quality of life. The program produced graphs that indicated what would happen to those variables in the future. The graphs identified 2020 as a turning point for civilization.

“At around 2020, the condition of the planet becomes highly unlivable. If we do nothing about it, the quality of life goes down to zero. Pollution becomes so serious that it will start to kill people, which in turn will reduce the population to the level in the 1900 and that civilized life as we know on this planet will disappear around 2040 to 2050.”

This was not the end of the model. In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, a book that built on a program called World Three. This time the variables were pollution, population, food production, consumption of nonrenewable natural resources and scientific developments.

The Limits to Growth pushed the collapse of civilization to 2072, when the limits of growth would be the most readily apparent and result in population and industrial declines.

The book touched off a fierce media war. The New York Times, for instance, wrote that the book assumed that a resource could never change over time, leaving their data shortsighted to any possible changes in consumption habits.

Writing in The Guardian, Cathy Alexander, a Melbourne-based journalist, argued, “The research does not say that collapse of the world economy, environment and population is a certainty. Nor does it claim the future will unfold exactly as the models predicted. But the findings should sound an alarm bell. It seems unlikely that the search for ever-increasing growth can continue unchecked to 2100 without causing serious negative effects—and those effects might come sooner than we think.”