Charging Down The Starvation Trail, About To Hit 7 Billion Mouths To Feed
Posted: Sunday, October 16, 2011
by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html
As of today at 4:40 P.M. CDT, the earth’s population stood at 6,996,908,430. But before I could get an eye on it, there were 15-20 more added to it. It appears to be adding over 100 per minute. But regardless of what it appears to be doing, it is estimated that it will reach the 7,000,000,000 (7 billion) on October 31. They cannot predict for a certainty but even if not that day, very, very soon afterward. If you would like to watch these stats as they come up, Click Here
Total World Population
Births this year
Births today
Deaths this year
Deaths today
Net population growth this year
Plus, they have a countdown clock by days, hours and minutes before we hit 7,000,000,000.
The fact is, you may want to linger on that page a while. They have numerals adding up everything almost from cars bought today all the way to solar energy hitting the earth today and much, much more.
But back to our 7,000,000,000 thing. Pay attention to these stats and start hoarding food. In 1800, there was less than one billion on the earth. In 1960, less than 3 billion. Now think about that for one second. From 3,000,000,000 to 7,000,000,000 in 51 years. Just imagine, when I was born,(1930) there probably were no more than 1-½ to 2 billion people and here we now have 7. Talk about prolific. But take my word for it, they are not all mine…ahem, back to our subject.
But seriously, the situation is becoming serious. Thomas Malthus famously predicted in 1798 that at some point, it would all be too much: starvation and disease would kill people more quickly than we can replace them. Well, it still appears that he may have been correct, but we have to consider several things. One, we are managing to get a throat hold on many diseases. But on the other hand, that helps us to gain numbers in population faster. We have advanced enormously in our ability to produce more food on less acreage, there are millions of acres yet that can be turned into arable and fertile crop land, so when does the crisis appear? No one knows but the hope is that with our advances in technology and education of our peoples, that we will be able to slow the growth rate down, perhaps to 0.
Those who deal in demographics tell us that to maintain the current level of population, each couple needs to produce 2.1 offspring. (I can’t pass that one up…but I don’t think that 0.1 child is going to help very much) But back to seriousness, some areas have already reached that level of growth and less. Western Europe had dropped to 1.4 childen per couple before the turn of the 21 century.
The problem lies mostly in the developing nations where the growth rate is often far above the neutral growth point. Until they become educated and assisted with birth control procedures, they will continue to be in the groups which have most of the diseases and malnutrition.
They tell me that the population growth is slowing, but looking at that odometer linked above, makes that statement very questionable. Some sperts (I am hesitant to call them experts) saying they expect the growth to level about mid century (maybe 40 years from now) at approximately 9,000,000,000. I don’t expect to live that long to see, but I surely hope they are correct for those who live that long. (If I should live until then, I would certainly have broken a Guinness record)
With 3 more billion, people, can you imagine what the freeways into Atlanta will be like? I intend to mark Atlanta off of my route long before that.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)The "sperts" may be right. Some countries won't even exist in 100 years, so the sperts say. Because they are replacing at a very low rate. It is the distribution of food, and the distribution of people, and the predominance of "local chieftains" controlling the distribution of food that causes great concern. Great article.
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