World population to reach 6.9B at New Year, German group says

[joshcryer]

At the stroke of the clock at midnight, December 31, the world’s population will have grown to about 6.9 billion and will hit seven billion by the middle of 2011, a German aid group that promotes birth control said in Hanover, Germany on Tuesday.

The German Foundation for World Population, or DSW, runs a “population meter" on its website that calculates the current world population from various annual data sources.

At midnight on Friday, the calculator will read 6,934,196,000, up 80 million from one year ago. Following population trends, the numbers assume that 2.6 people are born every second.

This is slightly different from estimates of the World Population Global Report of the United States Census, which estimates that that worldwide and every second, there are 4.17 total births and 1.8 total deaths — causing a net growth of 2.37 per second.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/209390/world-population-to-reach-69b-at-new-year-german-group-says

Related:

http://io9.com/5720871/2000-vs-2010-how-the-world-has-changed?skyline=true&s=i

Nearly a billion new people came into existence since 2000. Yay humans!

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Holy cow!

[tigereye]

2. that is just mind-boggling. Hope the resources can keep

up, or at least be distributed more reasonably. Wonder about the stats for people and children of those 6.9 billion (hard to grasp the idea of that many people, actually) without enough food or money to live? :(

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Yikes! Thats an exponential jump in a mere decade.

[tekisui]

4. World's biggest party EVAH!!!!!

[Kennah]

5. Just like "Idiocracy"

[TroubleMan]

6. Arithmetic, Population and Energy

Again I have to say it's the most important video you'll ever see. It's just a math lecture from a Professor Emeritus at the University of Boulder Colorado

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4364780292633368976#

However it's very interesting and very germane to this discussion. I wish everybody could have seen this in the 70's when Jimmy Carter was talking about it.

[joshcryer]

7. I've seen that video and I highly recommend it. It's basically says that there is indeed a limit.

The limit is very very near. We'll see it in our lifetimes if you're in your 30s or less.

[GliderGuider]

9. The limit is indeed very near.

In fact, it's already here. However, since we don't have the historical context to recognize it, it still looks simply like hints of a disaster yet to come. I expect we'll look back on the turn of the millenium and shake our heads ruefully that we were so busy fretting about the date changing that we missed the real story that was happening all around us.

[joshcryer]

11. In many respects it's definitely here, however, we won't really start feeling it for a little while.

And that's what's so tragic about the whole thing, because once we start feeling it (assuming we don't get our act together from now until then, I'm hoping we will, and I'll do everything I can to make it so), it's going to be far far too late to do anything about it. We'll have one fucking hell of a culling and it won't be pretty.

[Gregorian]

14. Some of us are feeling it already.

It's no different than global warming. Once we start feeling it it's too late. Or cancer, for that matter. By the time one feels it, it's too late to stop smoking. The damage is done.

I feel so good knowing there are a few of you out there. Thanks for posting. It helps.

[GliderGuider]

16. Your comment about cancer really hit home for me.

My sister died 20 years ago at the tender age of 36 from throat cancer. It started on her tongue and she was misdiagnosed for a number of critical months because they thought it was a normal canker sore. When diagnosing a problem, the first temptation is always to think it's something you've seen before. Like the saying goes, "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The problem is that when you do that you may make assumptions that blind you to evidence that points in other directions. In medical slang, my sister's cancer was a "zebra".

I think that many of the things we see around us today: political changes (especially around terrorism), wheat rust in Africa and Asia, coral bleaching, droughts and floods (how about that Queensland, eh?) and rising food prices will all turn out to be zebras.

[The2ndWheel]

18. I think the limit has always been there

The limit is always changing. The limit is probably less than whatever the current number is at any given time, but we keep manipulating the environment to accommodate greater and greater numbers. To balance that out, something else within the environment has to take the hit. It's another tree that needs to be cut down for whatever reason. It's another road through another habitat. It's more topsoil that erodes. It's another non-human animal that needs to be put into a zoo, or just disappears altogether. It's another specific piece of land that we need to protect from ourselves...until we need it.

The more people there are, the more there is that people do, always means less of something else within the environment. It has to. There is only so much space. The more we take, the less there is for everything else. When other species act in the same manner, to the particular extents that they can, nature has a way of dealing with it when things get way too out of balance. We do our best to not allow that type of regulation. We damn sure aren't going to regulate ourselves. Not one of these clean or green ideas is about fewer people doing less. It's all about giving more people the opportunity to do more. If nothing else, it should be a good show.

[joshcryer]

20. If you watch the video the limit is very hard, there's just no getting around it.

It's not like the video is rejecting "alternatives." It's just that, when you start to realize that once you have a doubling, your society is using more resources in a given doubling time than the entire preceeding time of human civilization that you start to grap just how bad the doublings are from a resource utilization standpoint.

[tavalon]

10. Thanks, I think

I just spent one hour and five minutes listening to a man who doesn't suffer fools gladly and we are all fools. Unfortunately, the fact that my family line dies with me, doesn't change the fact of exponential growth.

[Gregorian]

13. Good for you. Thanks for posting that.

I don't even have to watch it since I know which one it is.

I just wish people were willing to think instead of just doing what they want to do. Or something like that. It's pretty much a few of us against the whole world. I can't come up with the right words. And I certainly cannot change people's minds, nor nesting instinct.

[lfairban]

19. Love his statement:

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand exponential functions."

Everybody needs to watch this.

Now, I am not so worried about global worming. We will probably run out of coal and oil before we do too much damage. We might even be able to keep it to 2.5 deg. C. :sarcasm:

Notable Quotes:

Dr. Simon, Prof. BA, U. of Maryland and Adjunct Scholar of the Heritage Foundation:

With regards to copper, Simon has written that we will never run out of copper because "copper can be made from other metals."

OK, strictly speaking we can make gold out of lead. Unfortunately, the process is not cost effective.

Princeton University Press, about biofules,:

Clearly there is no meaningful limit to this source except the sun's energy.

But even if our sun were not as vast as it is, there may well be other suns elsewhere.

The mind, boggles. :crazy:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stuntcat]

12. the Endangered Species stat

I don't care what anyone says, my species is wiping out forever some strong species who are important to where they live. Any justification humans have for adding one more important little 'earth-saving' baby to this mess is ultimately selfish, very selfish.

[Gregorian]

15. *hugs*

Hello. We are in a minority. So it helps to know you are out there. Happy New Year Stuntcat.

[stuntcat]

17. Happy new year to you!

Thank you for being around here :hug:

This here SHARK wants to say Happy New Year too!


Good luck, Sharkie