Population Milestone: 7,000,000,000 Souls Now on the Planet
According to Time Magazine, scientists projected that the seven billionth human was born on October 31st, yesterday. Think about that: 7,000,000,000 people are now competing on planet earth for food, resources, living space, energy, and medical care. That statistic is doubly amazing when you consider that, when this Editor was born in the late-50s, world population was just three billion. When my mother was born in the 1920s there were just two billion people. So, in her lifetime (she’s in her eighties now), she has witnessed world population increase 350%!
The exponential increase in world population is actually a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, world population did not reach one billion until 1804, and it took 123 years to reach two billion. Now scientists predict that, in just 14 more years, the world population will reach EIGHT billion in the year 2025. That will have significant consequences for everything in our lives — from freeway traffic to retirement funding. Though the world population is getting larger, it is also getting older, particularly in “first-world” countries. In 1950 there were 12 working-age people for every person over 65 years. According to Time Magazine, by 2050, there will only be three (3) working age people for each person over 65. So who will pay for the pensioners? Will this lead to “generational” civil war?
Population growth affects the hunting and shooting community directly, because an expanding population increases the pressure to replace wildlands and open spaces with housing tracts and commercial centers. We have already witnessed this in California, where a number of shooting ranges have been closed to make way for housing developments. Even where existing shooting ranges are allowed to remain, these shooting facilities may face new restrictions on operating hours and potential liabilities for errant shots landing in newly-populated areas.
Here are some interesting Global Statistics:
29 years — Median age of world population.
19% — Percentage of world population now living in China.
$10,290 — Gross income per capita, worldwide average.
50.5% — Percentage of world population living in urban areas.
7.2 — Highest fertility rate among nations (from Central Africa).
73% — Percentage of world population that does NOT use the internet.
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Tags: 7 Billion, Fertility Rate, Population, Time Magazine
By the looks of that chart, we are gona run outa room realy fast!
“Though the world population is getting larger, it is also getting older”
I don’t see how both of these assertions can be true at the same time. If the population is growing there has to be more people being born than are dying. This would seem to imply more young people than old people.
Populations in developed countries are getting older due to low birth rates, but the birth rates in under developed countries are VERY high. I think the population is getting younger on a global scale.
Editor: Robert, you are correct that the birth rate in third-world countries is still very high. However world population is still “aging” because, globally, people are living a LOT longer. In some first-world countries, average lifespan is now in the mid-80s, when it was in the 60s no so long ago. The extension of longevity is causing an aging of the world population. Wiki reports: “This happens because of rising life expectancy or declining birth rates. Excepting 18 countries termed ‘demographic outliers’ by the UN[1][2]) this process is taking place in every country and region across the globe. In the entirety of recorded human history, the world has never seen as aged a population as currently exists globally.” And in developed countries the “graying” of the population is more extreme: “Among the countries currently classified by the United Nations as more developed (with a total population of 1.2 billion in 2005), the overall median age rose from 29.0 in 1950 to 37.3 in 2000, and is forecast to rise to 45.5 by 2050.”
A number that caught my attention was the calculation that there have been over 110 Billion people on the planet during the period of human habitation, counting those who have come and gone.
Kind of puts the current 7 Billion population in a different light; our time really is pretty short.