I've been re-reading some charts on the rate of population growth recently, and really it strikes me this is one huge 'elephant in the room' about which we must all surely be concerned....and particularly world leaders who are monitoring the global trends
Here are some figures taken from an article on Wikipedia
In 1500, estimated population was half a billion
In 1804, the world population reached about 1 billion
By 1927, it had doubled to 2 billion
By 1960, we were up to 3 billion
4 billion by 1974, 5 billion in 1987 and 6 in 1999
In 2009, the United Nations estimated would reach 7 billion by 2011-2012 .....( and the US census rates us currently about 6,858,200,000 so the 7 billion estimate is not far off ) On current growth rates the projection is to reach about 9 billion by the middle of this century.
One has to ask how on earth our planet can support these kind of numbers ?
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