The World at 7 Billion People: How Much More Growth Can the Planet Support? -
With global population expected to surpass 7 billion people this year, the staggering impact on an overtaxed planet is becoming more and more evident.
Global warming, food and water crises, even international conflict -- you can trace all these societal problems to overpopulation.
Demographers aren't known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world's human population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it's tempting to imagine that the UN Population Division, the data shop that pinpointed the Day of 7 Billion, is hinting that we should all be afraid, be very afraid.
We have reason to be. The 21st century is not yet a dozen years old, and there are already 1 billion more people than in October 1999 — with the outlook for future energy and food supplies looking bleaker than it has for decades. It took humanity until the early 19th century to gain its first billion people; then another 1.5 billion followed over the next century and a half. In just the last 60 years the world's population has gained yet another 4.5 billion. Never before have so many animals of one species anything like our size inhabited the planet.
And this species interacts with its surroundings far more intensely than any other ever has. Planet Earth has become Planet Humanity, as we co-opt its carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles so completely that no other force can compare. For the first time in life's 3-billion-plus-year history, one form of life — ours — condemns to extinction significant proportions of the plants and animals that are our only known companions in the universe.
Read more -
http://www.alternet.org/environment/151692/the_world_at_7_billion_people%3A_how_much_more_growth_can_the_planet_support/
With global population expected to surpass 7 billion people this year, the staggering impact on an overtaxed planet is becoming more and more evident.
Global warming, food and water crises, even international conflict -- you can trace all these societal problems to overpopulation.
Demographers aren't known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world's human population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it's tempting to imagine that the UN Population Division, the data shop that pinpointed the Day of 7 Billion, is hinting that we should all be afraid, be very afraid.
We have reason to be. The 21st century is not yet a dozen years old, and there are already 1 billion more people than in October 1999 — with the outlook for future energy and food supplies looking bleaker than it has for decades. It took humanity until the early 19th century to gain its first billion people; then another 1.5 billion followed over the next century and a half. In just the last 60 years the world's population has gained yet another 4.5 billion. Never before have so many animals of one species anything like our size inhabited the planet.
And this species interacts with its surroundings far more intensely than any other ever has. Planet Earth has become Planet Humanity, as we co-opt its carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles so completely that no other force can compare. For the first time in life's 3-billion-plus-year history, one form of life — ours — condemns to extinction significant proportions of the plants and animals that are our only known companions in the universe.
Read more -
http://www.alternet.org/environment/151692/the_world_at_7_billion_people%3A_how_much_more_growth_can_the_planet_support/
With fossil fuels dwindling, we still have our heads in the sand over where our energy will come from. If oil dissapears, our massive farm machinery grinds to a halt and the transportation network that brings strawberries from Nogales, Mexico to Nome Alaska will cease overnight. If we don't sort this out right away, we might see a global population of a couple hundred thousand in ten years.
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