Comment on ‘global human population has surpassed Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity’

Abstract Bradshaw et al interpret the post-1960 decline in global population growth rate as evidence that humanity has already exceeded Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity. I argue that this conclusion is not supported by the data or methods presented but conflates the demographic transition with ecological carrying-capacity limits in an unsubstantiated neo-Malthusian framing. The observed negative relationship between growth rate and population size is equally consistent with the well-established demographic transition associated with socio-economic development. Bradshaw et al extrapolate a phenomenological Ricker model to a non-stationary human system, interpreting environmental correlations that are vulnerable to shared-trend confounding, and deriving a ‘sustainable’ carrying-capacity estimate from normative assumptions embedded in ecological-footprint accounting. While the paper highlights genuine environmental pressures, its title and central claims exceed what the evidence can justify.