Don’t feel lonely – We are 6.5 Billion
The Earth’s human inhabitants are estimated to have reached 6.5 billion people at 7:16pm ET this previous Saturday. Evidently more than 2 times as many people are born each second than die. Here are two articles on the milestone : an MSNBC article mentions how populations are growing where growth can least be afforded and a Wired article says that the current percent annual growth is actually down from the peak time between 1965 and 1970. Might some of you contributed to that explosive growth?
BTW, do you have plans Oct 18, 2012? How about a big, BIG party to celebrate the 7 billionth person?
March 1st, 2006 at 12:15 am
In the seconds it takes you to read this sentence, 24 humans will be added to the earth’s population.
Within an hour, that number will reach 11,000. By this time tomorrow…264,000. It took 4 million
years for humanity to reach the 2 billion mark. It took only 30 years to add a third billion, and now,
as Jek says…….no wonder they call it the human race.
Also, it looks as if the Supreme Court will soon grant citizenship to zygotes. If and when this
happens, some of these POTENTIAL humans will become victims of illegal and dangerous back-alley
coat-hanger abortions. Surely all the rest will be born to secure, loving, ideal parents, right ?
March 1st, 2006 at 10:28 am
The genie’s out of the bottle. Pandora’s box has been opened. The wood has been made into a boat. And the abortion debate has come to MRCentral. Sigh.
The Wired article is pretty good. The Malthus/Ehrlich theory has been pretty soundly discredited, though it still continues to be trumpeted by the overpopulation people. Eventually the population may become too much for available resources, but the current analyses of “when” leave much to be desired. And the Ehrlich exponential/linear model is a joke.
I’m doing my part to keep the US population sustained.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:57 am
“The Mayan calendar stops at Dec. 21, 2012 — the date the Mayans believed the world would end,” he says. “On that day, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, those who are ready to ascend will vanish from this plane of existence, like the crew of the Enterprise in Star Trek.”
Coincidence? I think not. The problem will, thus be solved.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Where did I get the illusion that Earth’s population was on the decline?….. I thought it peaked with the “Baby Boomers” (I really hate that media-coined phrase.)…. A short history of my family shows a very sharp decline of replacement units….. My mother had 6 sisters and brothers, my father, 5…. An overpopulation of 5 on my mother’s side and 4 on my father’s side…. My mother and father produced 3 offspring, including me… An overpopulation of 1…. My oldest brother died in an automobile accident at age 25, along with his wife and their child…. If they had lived and had no other children, then that would have been a negative population of 1…… My other brother had one child with his first wife, she has had no further offspring, and his present wife has never had children…. Again, another negative population of 1….. My ex-wife and I had one rugrat, and neither of us have had any more children….. Another negative population of 1…. As of this comment, my son has had no offspring…. So, if this situation continues, that would be a negative population of 2 and would also end the family name since he is the only male, the family bloodline would continue as my niece has one child, but changed her name to that of her husband’s…. And that would also be a negative population of 1 if she has no further children, and since she is in her late thirties, it is doubtful….
So-o-o, I think it’s safe to say, My family has had nothing to do with this population explosion…. If fact, we have done more than our share to reduce overpopulation….. According to Sunn’s comment, it’s all gonna end in 2012 anyway, so what’s the problem?…..
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:09 pm
I haven’t added to the population. I’ll be a negative factor.
I read Diamonds book “Collapse, How Cultures Succeed or Fail”. I cant recommend it enough. I thought the “Succeed” part was especially interesting.
Mr. Jek, when your finished with it and if you haven’t passed it on, I have some people who would like to read it.
“Guns, Germs, and Steel” was good too…At least the first half or so. After that it was like a text book from college. I had to drink coffee to finish it.
March 4th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Anon: Uh, I don’t have it. You instructed me to pass it to MR. So talk to the man. I haven’t read either book, but I did see the “Guns, Germs, and Steel” 3-parter on PBS. It was very good.
March 4th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Mr. Jek,
Thats right. I forgot……MR, keep it circulating.
March 4th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Me and Mrs. J.J. are doing our part to keep it low as we do not have not and will not have any little J.J.s
March 7th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Okay, Okay, I admit it, I have the “Collapse” book…. I’m about halfway through it and will mail it back to Anon when I’m finished if that is OK? I should be finished with it within the week….. If you need it sooner than that, I’ll have to stall you somehow…. Hey, you got me interested in the book, what can I say?…..
What!…. No little J.J.’s, what’s the next generation going to do?……. Dance and be happy!!!!…. Just Kidding (Ha-Ha)…..
March 7th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
No hurry MR. Just want to keep the book circulating.
March 8th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
H-Sooner, since more than 40,000 humans starve to death on an average day, I think that’s a pretty good indication that the resources are not available NOW. Of course, starvation in the U.S. isn’t statistically significant. So, if you don’t really care about that portion of our species who aren’t Americans, then, hey–no problem.
MR, I’ve seen phone books. There’s NO WAY your family name is going to die out. Maybe your bloodline, but not your name.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:05 am
RtG — The consensus, at least among those of the undernourishment/hunger advocates, is that the current breakdown is in the distribution, rather than running into the limit of what the global resources will support. This breakdown is caused by, or made worse by, good old-fashioned third-world despotism.
March 9th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Now you see why I gave HuskySooner a University on the map….. I need a dictionary and a thesaurus just to theorize if he’s saying something important (it sounds important) or calling me a name in a dead language….. Just pulling your femur, HS…..
March 10th, 2006 at 12:02 am
I see what you’re saying, h-s, and you’re right, of course—on a perfect planet, enough food COULD be grown to feed everyone,
at least for now. But whether the underlying cause is political, economic, or plain old religious bull, sheer numbers will
always exacerbate the problem.