According to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year. That's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet. The world is about to change, again. Putting that number into context, the estimated population of the entire world at the time of Christ was 200,000,000 people.
We didn't hit our first billion until around 1804.
Two billion wasn't reached until 1927, 123 years later.
Three billion happened in 1960, only 33 years later (and that was after WW2 wiped out great chunks of the population)
Four billion was hit in 1975, the world's population had doubled in 48 years. The older members of this board will remember the year well.
Five billion. 1986. The world added one billion people in a mere 11 years.
Six billion everyone remembers. It was in 1999.
In 2011 we will hit the next milestone and then we'll be at 8 billion by 2024, as long as the UN's projections for improved birth control measures in third world and developing countries come to pass, otherwise it will be reached a year earlier.
Those of us in the western world (in particular the North Americans) consume great gobs of resources. There is little doubt if the world's population suddenly consumed like we do, it would result in the collapse of the planet. That hasn't happened yet, but there's another profound dynamic at play besides rapid population growth and that is consumerism. People in the two most populous countries of the world are just starting to consume the way we do. They're not even close yet, but that is their ambition. The American Dream has become the Chinese Dream and the Indian Dream and that's why their economies are red hot while ours cool on the back burner. We are pushing the envelope, and they aspire to be like us. The world's consumption of resources has shifted into high gear and there are clear indications it is about to go into overdrive.
Here's an economic indicator. Wonder why big screen TVs have come down so drastically in price this year? It's because they're everywhere. Companies are making more and more of them to meet demand, and the more units produced the greater the dilution of fixed costs until the total production cost of the unit comes down to its variable input cost. Big screen TVs are made with components supplied by contractors, which produce their component parts under the same fixed cost/variable cost model as the people assembling the TV - in other words, cost to produce is cut to the bone.
But all those TVs take resources to make and, more importantly, they also consume energy resources. Every additional big screen TV that finds its way into every household in the western nations and in the developing world chews up electricity. That means more hydro, more oil, more natural gas and more nukes. And that's just TVs. We are consuming resources, many of which are not renewable, at a greater and greater rate.
So. How do you think the world's going to change in the next, say, 50 years?
http://www.metafilter.com/94959/We-Are-Running-Out-Of-Helium-and-Its-Worse-Than-You-Think
http://www.worldometers.info/population/
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption