I looked at your graph, and I was wondering about that too. I'm no expert, but consider this. Population growth is usually expected to be exponential. The fact

I looked at your graph, and I was wondering about that too. I'm no expert, but consider this. Population growth is usually expected to be exponential. The fact that the graph looks linear we could interpret as a positive sign. Also, if we check out the Earth's growth rate [1], the percentages have indeed slowed down. The left part (1965 - 1970) peaking at 2.10% looks like Generation X, the children of the baby boomers. The latest datum at 2012 returns 1.15%, and is still trending slightly negative. The growth rate charts become more interesting as you isolate specific regions and countries. Sub-Saharan is the only region which is mostly trending positive [2]. Japan has received some press in recent years because its growth rate has actually crossed the x-axis[3] . [1] https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GBR:FRA:DEU#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_grow&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&tstart=-277848000000&tend=1331611200000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9... [2] https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GBR:FRA:DEU#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_grow&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:JPN:IDN&idim=region:EAP:ECA:LAC:MNA:NAC:SAS:SSA&ifdim=region&tstart=-277848000000&tend=1331611200000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9... [3] https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:GBR:FRA:DEU#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_grow&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:JPN&ifdim=country&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9...