Gosh, there are seven billion of us!

[roughrider]

We live in an awfully crowded World of seven billion. Is there space for more?

Economists must be wondering whether Malthus had a point and a terrible disaster will reduce population to equilibrium levels. There has to be a point when population is unsustainable. What can we do about this?

Well, let’s first comprehend what seven billion really means in figures. Here is a CNN report.

Just how big is 7 billion?
By Kyle Almond, CNN
October 30, 2011 -- Updated 2008 GMT (0408 HKT)

(CNN) -- The global population is expected to reach 7 billion Monday -- just 12 years after hitting 6 billion -- and the milestone has many pondering the complex challenges associated with billions more people on Earth in the coming years.

Some are also pondering something else: Just how big is 7 billion really?

It's a number that's easy to underestimate.

On the surface, it doesn't look much different than 6 billion, either in written form or numeric form. There are nine zeros in 6,000,000,000, just like there are nine zeros in 7,000,000,000. But if you counted every number in between them, it would take more than 30 years. Yes, three decades.

And when was the last time you used 7 billion in everyday life? Have you ever eaten 7 billion of something? Have you ever owned 7 billion of anything? Early this year, there were only 140 people in the world who were worth $7 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
"The number is just outside of our usual everyday scale of thinking," said Klaus Volpert, an associate professor of mathematics at Villanova University. "We count to 10 on our fingers and that's our scale, you know? Even counting to a million is already kind of outside of the everyday experience. And then once you go past a million, it becomes a blur."

Here are some different ways that might help you envision the enormousness of 7 billion:

-- Seven billion seconds ago, the year was 1789. That was the year George Washington was inaugurated as the first U.S. president and Congress met for the very first time.

-- If you took 7 billion steps along the Earth's equator -- at 2 feet per step -- you could walk around the world at least 106 times.
-- Suppose an average thimble holds 2 milliliters of water. Seven billion of those thimbles would fill at least five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

-- Let's say the average human is about 5 feet tall, accounting for children. If you stack those 7 billion people end to end, they would reach about 1/14th of the way to the sun -- or 27 times the distance to the moon, Volpert said.

-- Seven billion ants, at an average size of 3 milligrams each, would weigh at least 23 tons (46,297 pounds).

"Our mind just staggers," Volpert said, when thinking about how big 7 billion really is. He said there's a similar feeling when trying to grasp ultra-tiny measurements or something as vast as outer space.
"Every once in a while when we look up at the stars, we get a glimpse of the scale that's beyond the human scale, and it's fascinating and great," he said.

Population experts are hoping that more people begin to grasp the 7 billion concept soon, because the number has skyrocketed in recent years and the situation is becoming more urgent. (See populations country-by-country)

The world didn't reach 1 billion inhabitants until 1800, according to the Population Reference Bureau, and it reached 2 billion in 1930. But with advances in modern medicine, it took only 30 more years to reach 3 billion, 14 years to reach 4 billion, 13 years to reach 5 billion and 12 years to reach both 6 billion and 7 billion.

The U.N. has estimated a population of 9.3 billion by 2050, and there is expected to be more than 10 billion people on Earth by 2100.
"We're getting into more and more trouble the bigger the number gets," said John Bongaarts, vice president of the Population Council, an international nonprofit group. "Every billion people we add makes life more difficult for everybody that's already here."

edition.cnn.com/2011/10/29/world/7-billion/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

[roughrider]

With 7 billion on earth, a huge task before us
Jeffrey Sachs

(CNN) -- Just 12 years after the arrival of the 6 billionth individual on the planet in 1999, humanity will greet the 7 billionth arrival this month. The world population continues its rapid ascent, with roughly 75 million more births than deaths each year. The consequences of a world crowded with 7 billion people are enormous. And unless the world population stabilizes during the 21st century, the consequences for humanity could be grim.

A rising population puts enormous pressures on a planet already plunging into environmental catastrophe. Providing food, clothing, shelter, and energy for 7 billion people is a task of startling complexity.

The world's agricultural systems are already dangerously overstretched. Rainforests are being cut down to make way for new farms; groundwater used for irrigation is being depleted; greenhouse gases emitted from agricultural activities are a major factor in global climate change; fertilizers are poisoning estuaries; and countless species are threatened with extinction as we grab their land and water and destroy their habitats.

The economic challenges are equally huge. Population is growing most rapidly in the world's poorest countries -- often the places with the most fragile ecological conditions. Poor people tend to have many more children, for several reasons. Many live on farms, where children can be engaged in farm chores.

Poor societies generally suffer from high rates of child mortality, leading parents to have more children as "insurance" against the possible deaths of children. Girls rarely make it to high school, and are often married at a very young age, leading to early childbearing. And modern methods of contraception may be unavailable or unaffordable.

When poor families have six or eight children, many or most of them are virtually condemned to a lifetime of poverty. Too often, parents lack the wherewithal to provide decent nutrition, health care and education to most of them. Illiteracy and ill health end up being passed from generation to generation. Governments in poor countries are unable to keep up, their budgets overmatched by the need for new schools, roads and other infrastructure.

So the arrival of the 7 billionth person is cause for profound global concern. It carries a challenge: What will it take to maintain a planet in which each person has a chance for a full, productive and prosperous life, and in which the planet's resources are sustained for future generations? How, in short, can we enjoy "sustainable development" on a very crowded planet?

The answer has two parts, and each portends a difficult journey over several decades. The first part requires a change of technologies -- in farming, energy, industry, transport and building -- so that each of us on average is putting less environmental stress on the planet. We will have to make a worldwide transition, for example, from today's fossil-fuel era, dependent on coal, oil and gas, to an era powered by low-carbon energies such as the sun and wind. That will require an unprecedented degree of global cooperation.

The second key to sustainable development is the stabilization of the global population. This is already occurring in high-income and even some middle-income countries, as families choose to have one or two children on average. The reduction of fertility rates should be encouraged in the poorer countries as well. Rapid and wholly voluntary reductions of fertility have been and can be achieved in poor countries. Success at reducing high fertility rates depends on keeping girls in school, ensuring that children survive, and providing access to modern family planning and contraceptives.

Two centuries ago, the British thinker Thomas Robert Malthus famously warned that excessive population growth would cut short economic progress. That is a threat still with us today, but it is a warning, not an inevitable outcome.

We face an urgent task: to adopt more sustainable technologies and lifestyles, and work harder to achieve a stable population of some 8 billion or so by mid-century, rather than the current path, which could easily carry the world to more than 10 billion people by 2100.

Editor's note: Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of The Earth Institute, Columbia University. He and colleagues will discuss the 7 billion mark in a free live webcast Monday, October 17. He is the author of "The Price of Civilization," published this month.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeffrey Sachs.

[roughrider]

Folks, in a nutshell, the global challenge is the following: can we produce more with less, sustainably? Can we keep the population growth at a more sedate, sustainable pace while respecting individual human rights and morality? Can we distribute resources better – more according to need and less according to greed?

These challenges are gargantuan because they confront us on a global scale. For instance while the US accounts for about 4% of the global population it accounts for over 25% of pollution that depletes the ozone layer and accelerates global warming and climate change. Climatic variability will hit poorer countries disproportionately. This unfairness is at the core of the debate. Not surprisingly, US politicians – mainly from the GOP – are happy to deny even the very existence of human-driven climate change!

[destiny]

7 billion....., so what number are you?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

[Luol Deng]

I don't buy Jeffrey Sachs's hypothesis, for instance, the 7 Billion population can be entirely settled in a country the size of the USA and it will still be less densely populated than Bangladesh for instance.

When it comes to food, the world currently produces a lot more food than it consumes. Food however has become a commodity that is being speculated on. There are instances of players in the food trade would rather destroy part of their stock than to let the 'market forces' to naturally lower the prices. There was a thorough report authored for the UNCTAD in June this year that unravels the food speculation business and it can be found here:

www.unctad.org/en/docs/gds20111_en.pdf

My skepticism however doesn't mean that there are no legitimate concerns to address. The planet cannot sustain the American/European style consumer society. There are simply not enough raw materials to manufacture the stuff, the environment will not be able to cope with it either, but that would have been the case even if the global population were 3 billion.....

[roughrider]

Oct 31, 2011 16:04:52 GMT 3 Luol Deng said:

I don't buy Jeffrey Sachs's hypothesis, for instance, the 7 Billion population can be entirely settled in a country the size of the USA and it will still be less densely populated than Bangladesh for instance.

When it comes to food, the world currently produces a lot more food than it consumes. Food however has become a commodity that is being speculated on. There are instances of players in the food trade would rather destroy part of their stock than to let the 'market forces' to naturally lower the prices. There was a thorough report authored for the UNCTAD in June this year that unravels the food speculation business and it can be found here:

www.unctad.org/en/docs/gds20111_en.pdf

My skepticism however doesn't mean that there are no legitimate concerns to address. The planet cannot sustain the American/European style consumer society. There are simply not enough raw materials to manufacture the stuff, the environment will not be able to cope with it either, but that would have been the case even if the global population were 3 billion.....

Luoldeng,

I think he is NOT concerned about space. It is more a question of whether the limited resources in the world will support a galloping population. It is logical to assume that we will reach a point where there are simply too many people. Hot, flat and crowded.

The problem with food distribution is intractable. Think about the food aid system that is driven by US grain farmers, shipping companies and aid workers. Because of this system, there will be no effort to design home made systems relying on local and regional procurement or cash transfer systems in place of relief food.

The problems here are similar to those created by the current crisis of capital resulting from unbridled capitalism.

[Luol Deng]

Roughrider,

Agreed, the food situation seems to be intractable, but it needn't be so. I am presently in Malawi, this is a country that was a net importer of food, but right now exports maize to Kenya! The answer to the food problem here happened to be subsidies, simple. The west always preaches the virtues of free market economics yet to them the question of subsidies is an untouchable one. As long as our leaders don't grow spines (and brains), we'll be stuck in this mess.

When it comes to resources, as I said, we don't have enough for the American style consumerist society. It would have been so even if the population was only 2 billion. It is about using the resources we have smartly.

As you say, the problems are similar to those created by unbridled capitalism.....It is all about the system, even if we were a billion less at this juncture, the problems would have seemed exactly the same....

[roughrider]

Luoldeng;

I don't know if subsidies will be sustainable for a country like Malawi in the long term. That is a discussion for another day. But I am amazed at their mixed fortune. They have food so the system denies them fuel: as I understand, Malawi are in the throes of a chronic fuel crisis. And with only 6% of the population accessing electricity, what is this scenario doing to the environment as folks rely on fuel wood?

I have skimmed over the link - 'financialisation of commodities'. That is what they did to mortgages in the US and it became a comedy as 'financial' giants begun collapsing one after the other after the paper started collapsing. The important lesson here is that it is better to stick to fundamentals as much as possible: whether it is grain or housing!

[nereah]

as a christian, my small mind tells me that we may be acting God or second guessing Him with concerns of an overcrowded universe. it is understandable if those of us who don't do God like adongo ;D are worried.

i was taught as a child and have been made to believe by immutable and irrepressible evidential truth that God,the creator of universe is in charge and until the second coming of his son, whose existence is the basis upon which even none believers define age(bc and ad),we have no cause for alarm.

all that am blubbering about is that 7 billion or not, blue pills or not, contraceptives or not, God is still in charge of the universe and we must not second guess him.

[roughrider]

Oct 31, 2011 17:53:21 GMT 3 nereah said:

as a christian, my small mind tells me that we may be acting God or second guessing Him with concerns of an overcrowded universe. it is understandable if those of us who don't do God like adongo ;D are worried.

i was taught as a child and have been made to believe by immutable and irrepressible evidential truth that God,the creator of universe is in charge and until the second coming of his son, whose existence is the basis upon which even none believers define age(bc and ad),we have no cause for alarm.

all that am blubbering about is that 7 billion or not, blue pills or not, contraceptives or not, God is still in charge of the universe and we must not second guess him.

Amen!

I too believe in God. I think we can control population without using contraceptives. It needs a bit more willpower and morality that seems to be lacking in the average person.

[roughrider]

Exactly how many people can the world hold?

ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text

[Luol Deng]

How much can the world hold? I think we have stats on the size of the earth excluding oceans & Antarctica & the north pole.......7 billion doesn't even begin to stretch it. When it comes to the issue of water, National geographic are stretching it here......Getting the water requirements vis-a-vis what is available is a relatively straightforward exercise. As for the issue of food, I'd be curious to know how much grain USA alone produces and destroys relative to the nutrition needs of the world. I'm not a big fan of the National Geographic, I believe they are agenda driven & are sensationalists.

Believe you me, with the current paradigm, even if the world population were less by 2 billion, the challenges would have been exactly the same.

[subsaharanite]

Rough rider,

Its time you used more roughriders!

[Luol Deng]

RoughRider,

When it comes to the fuel crisis, it is absolutely crazy. There is no fuel in petrol stations and whenever a consignment is expected at a station you'll always see a queue of cars & customers with jerry cans waiting to pounce. The stocks barely last for a day.

Anyway, the fuel crisis is caused by the lack of foreign exchange which can be attributed to several factors. Malawi is a country that is still heavily reliant on tobacco exports and tobacco is slowly becoming 'untouchable' in most countries. The amount of money fetched in the international market has been dwindling for some time....The major problem here is that there has been no move away from tobacco, the current president has in many ways made it worse by 'constitutionalising' the crop!

[veri]

We're not in a position to play G-d. These economists sicken me. Reducing a fraction of greed and changing our lifestyles - that being, get rid of capitalism, import and export systems, quit bolstering institutions, transfer energies to movement (transport, internet, digital communication and space).

Being moral and user friendly as opposed to wealth creation and hedonistic. I still have faith nations like Kenya will lead the future by fully harnessing digital spaces, self-sustainable projects, the best of eco-technology, openly sharing knowledge efficiently and appropriately. The best brains can lead the future without political hinderances. Revolutionary schooling systems, no need for institutions and stuff, but organic, grassroots, humane, ethical, moral, inner, higher awareness kind of future society.

Living the agrarian life adapted to the city and high rises. It need not have to be technological awesomeness or end up povo rationing. If society can be conditioned to higher things, like the Tibetan monks, convents, and so on. It wouldn't matter how many of us populate this world, we would have an organic pulse, a humane, moral rhythm ensuring the survival of humanity and beyond.