In my experience (energy and mineral resource exploration) it means that population growth from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 8 billion today coupled with increased expectations of consumption levels across the globe has come at the expense of vast tracts of unique habitats and the elimination of most species on the planet along with our waste by products threatening our own continued existence at this scale into the future.

For what purpose?

Why is 8 billion 'better' than 2.5 billion, and how many people is too many (or not enough).

There is land left for us to cover over Trantor style, but there is little left in the way of prime habitat, the river mouths and edges have been largely urbanised at the expense of wet marsh filters that keep our petri dish of a planet clean.