The Population Reference Bureau recently released their 2011 World Population Data Sheet, which looks forward to the point later this year when global population will cross the 7 billion mark. The report includes 18 indicators on population, health, and environment for more than 200 geographic entities. With the world discussing the concept of seven billion people, Contributing Writer Xanthe Webb Aintablian writes here about whether seven billion people is something our planet can sustain.
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I think now a time we , the whole world definately leaning towards one child policy.. isn’t it, for sustainace of our beautiful planet, the earth
I know our planet was never intended to have this many people, and destroying farmland for urban development is making the problem much worse.
Foolish man. Now. After reaching a population level that defies any solution short of an unimaginable die-off of billions we see some notice being taken. Now it’s too late.
Until a mere thousand years, or so, ago there were NEVER more than 0.3 billion of us. Today, 23 times as many. When I was born we were just about to turn over to 2 billion. Even that number was about 7 times all those alive during times we studied in History; Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc.
Maybe, just maybe, we could have made a sustainable civilization with the 3 billion of 1960. China’s one child policy was perhaps the most enlightened policy in man’s history yet was almost universally condemned.
It’s ironic – I used to half-jokingly say, “some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children,” but after writing this article, I wouldn’t want to be the one that took away that human right. Just a thought. I’m not saying you’re right or wrong.
Animal populations are not a matter of conceptions or births or the “right to breed?” but a matter of how many can be kept alive at one time – whether it’s microbes or man. Used to be healthy and fertile females of all species were pretty much kept pregnant and that’s still true except for man. But now man’s technology makes it possible to keep lots of people alive at one time and exponential growth has prevailed over behavior adaptation.
“I’m not saying you’re right or wrong.” Then what are you saying? You can challenge my facts of course. But if you say my facts are wrong then you ARE saying I am wrong.
I just heard Anderson Cooper broadcasting from Somalia saying the UN estimates 700,000 children are likely to die from starvation in the area.
Seven hundred thousand? That’s really not very many, as every day some 15,000 to 20,000 children die from diarhea due to bad water. That’s about 5 to 7 million, not only this year but every year. A little laundry bleach could prevent nearly all of these deaths. But if they survived where would their food come from?
All I have to do is cite some (often unpleasant) facts to kill off all further comments.