This is not primarily about population, but as India is one of the real fast growers in terms of population, I thought it might fit in this thread.
It's about consumption preferences as poor people get a higher average income. One of the most needed and preferred consumption good is the air conditioner. Across South Asia, whose tropical zones include some of the world’s largest cities, extreme heat waves are becoming more common and deadly, making air conditioners lifesaving pieces of technology.
"As temperatures and incomes rise, the air conditioner is now what Nikit Abhyankar, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory calls “a threshold good —
the moment you cross into that middle-class income level, you go and buy one.”
"By 2030, Abhyankar projects, the explosion in air conditioning alone will raise India’s electricity demands by 150 gigawatts, the equivalent of adding three economies the size of California to its power grid.
Most of that electricity will come from
coal, pumping out more of the carbon emissions that are blamed for worsening pollution, respiratory diseases, millions of premature deaths and hotter air temperatures — which will only push people to buy more air conditioners.
India is in the midst of one of the biggest urban transitions in history, with more than 400 million people projected to migrate to cities by 2050. "
This is one of the reasons why this thread is headlined 'Population: Public Enemy No. 1'. Not that earth's population grows rapidly, or that we are too many people, but that it grows in the poorest countries, where the masses have consumption preferences that are very detrimental to our climate. India, Africa (south of Sahara), etc.
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-india-air-conditioners-2017-story.html