[spot5050]

Apparently there will be 7 billion of us on Monday. Wow. 7 billion

I'm 46 years old and in junior school I remember reading an Encyclopaedia which said that the world population was 3 billion.

[vision-master]

So, careful with that axe Eugene?

[Newfie]

I was born in 1950, Then 2.556 billion. Or thereabouts.

[prajeshbhat]

I was born in 1988. The world population was 5.104 billion back then. I have contributed to the additional 1.896 billion since then

[MD]

Someday it will be back to a billion.

[Crazy_Dad]

Probably the bigest tragedy to beset mankind will be our own fecundity.

Some news outlets are 'celebrating 7 billion'.

I see no logical or scientific reason in play in the main stream. May the spaghetti monster help us all.

[Newfie]

Probably the bigest tragedy to beset mankind will be our own fecundity. Some news outlets are 'celebrating 7 billion'. I see no logical or scientific reason in play in the main stream. May the spaghetti monster help us all.

I'm for that CD, it's about as effective as anything else out there.

can·cer/ˈkansər/
Noun:
The disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body.
A malignant growth or tumor resulting from such a division of cells.

[Pops]

There have been 6,819,391,404 people born since me.

That is pretty amazing.


http://www.7billionandme.org/about-you.php

[Ferretlover]

Seven billion? Funny. I don't feel a bit different!

[Graeme]

Infographic: If 7 Billion People Lived In One City, How Big Would It Be?

Today the world population reached 7 billion (more or less). The media and interwebs are abuzz about what it all means. Designer/writer/researcher Tim De Chant has a more interesting take: What does it all look like? Specifically: If all those people lived in one enormous city, how big would that city be?

The question raises interesting sub-questions about urban design and density, which De Chant's design incorporates: He doesn't just map the vaunted 7 billion onto some city at random, or onto some imaginary "average" city, but onto six famous metropolises across the world with wildly different ages, nationalities, and cultural histories. And De Chant uses the lower 48 United States as a scale reference. That might not mean much to non-American readers, but if Yankees comprise the bulk of De Chant's own audience on his must-read blog, it's a clever piece of visual communication.

So, the results: Apparently, a city with 7 billion inhabitants--and the population density of Paris--could fit comfortably into a space the size of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.


According to USA Today, half the world's population already lives in cities, a figure that could increase to 69% by 2050. Designing smarter cities that can pack people in without crushing their souls is going to be one of the great challenges of our century, and kudos to Tim De Chant for making such an elegant visual argument for it.

fastcodesign

Population is not the problem

Although Ehrlich's rectangle is a neat illustration, the population "problem" for the environment is more accurately described as two rectangles, each representing the number of people on the vertical and their lifestyles on the horizontal: one tall skinny quadrant encompasses billions of people who use very little of Earth's resources; the other a much shorter, extraordinarily long one for the minority of humans who use the vast majority of natural wealth. The World Bank estimates, for example, that the richest fifth of the world has more than three-quarters of the income; the poorest fifth just 1.5%.

Given that populations are barely stable and sometimes falling in most of the rich world, population policy would inevitably have to make noticeable inroads into the tall-skinny many/poor rectangle. Assuming such policies were successful – and excluding the widely unacceptable coercion of China's one child policy or India's mass sterilisations in the 1970s, persuading people to have fewer babies has proved very tricky – the overall reduction in combined environmental impact would be very small.

The more troubling issue, though, is that this calculation assumes that as the tall-skinny rectangle gets shorter, it does not get wider. Experience, however, suggests that, except for extreme cases such as Zimbabwe, it will get fatter.

Across time and geography, countries that have reduced birth rates have got richer and so more consumptive: rising incomes, better health and education give men and women the confidence that more of their children will survive into adulthood and help support their families; and as birthrates fall governments can spend more on each person's health, education and jobs, feeding a virtuous cycle of economic development and slowing population growth.

guardian

[prajeshbhat]

Across time and geography, countries that have reduced birth rates have got richer and so more consumptive: rising incomes, better health and education give men and women the confidence that more of their children will survive into adulthood and help support their families; and as birthrates fall governments can spend more on each person's health, education and jobs, feeding a virtuous cycle of economic development and slowing population growth.

The problem is that only 20 % of the global population has made that demographic transition. The majority is still very poor and they have lots of children hoping that some of them will survive and support them in their old age.

The World Bank estimates, for example, that the richest fifth of the world has more than three-quarters of the income; the poorest fifth just 1.5%.

I bet hierarchies exist even in that bottom 20%.

[centaurian_slug]

clearly my overpopulation rants on the web have been very ineffective.
I can now switch from typing "6.7billion" to "7billion"

[Serial_Worrier]

So ya'll POers are worthy but those dirty 3rd world billions should be done away with for "the good of Gaia" riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

[Pretorian]

So ya'll POers are worthy but those dirty 3rd world billions should be done away with for "the good of Gaia" riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

well they will be done away with regardless of your opinion, soo.. what is your point exactly

[Serial_Worrier]

So ya'll POers are worthy but those dirty 3rd world billions should be done away with for "the good of Gaia" riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

well they will be done away with regardless of your opinion, soo.. what is your point exactly

No it's the idea that ya'll think you are some superior form of beings that will inherit the earth from the "mud people".

[vision-master]

Maybe we will end up like Mars....?

See ya in cyber space!

Like, think about it.......How many years you got left here anyhoo? Maybe 30 to 40 at best - big deal.......