The size of the human population has exploded over the past 200 years, and grown even more sharply in the past few decades. In this thought-provoking talk, Professor of Global Ecology Corey Bradshaw examines rates of population change and explains Earth’s capacity to support our total population now and into the future. Spoiler: the Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity is considerably lower than even our current, let alone future, population size. Professor Corey Bradshaw joined Flinders University in January 2017 as the Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology.He is the Director of the Global Ecology Laboratory and lead Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures and was formerly a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage where he led its Modelling Node.From 2008–2015 Corey was at the University of Adelaide (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change 2015–2016), and from 2004–2008, Senior then Principal Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University. He was an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tasmania from 1999–2004.Corey’s research is mainly in global-change ecology — how human endeavour and climate fluctuations have altered past, present and future ecosystems.His most important contributions have been in applied ecology, biodiversity conservation, theoretical ecology, extinction dynamics, human demography, species responses to climate change, disease ecology, and applying ecological theory and modelling techniques to hindcast prehistoric ecosystems.Corey’s work has provided environmental policy advice around the world, and his papers are highly cited. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx