Planet's Population to Hit 6.5 Billion Saturday

[beachguy in thongs]

What's the ratio for cannabis (ounce):human life? Do you think there's 6.5 billion ounces of marijuana on Earth? I'm slowly becoming afraid of this plant. Like the Venus fly-trap, or something.

[slipknotpsycho]

or a pandemic...

might get one sooner than you'd of thought... this whole situation with bird flu seems kinda iffy right now.. yup.. and then ima shoot any bird that gets within 30 feet of me..

[beachguy in thongs]

Don't say that. I'm gonna go sit out by the ocean, finish this cigarette, and my coffee.

[Oneironaut]

The earth certainly can support 6.5 billion people. We're not dying off by the masses are we? Even if the world population were to double, there would be 87.2 square kilometers of land for every person alive. World hunger isn't caused so much by overpopulation as by economic conditions. We have enough food to feed everybody, but we don't actually do what's needed to put that food into everybody's mouths (because we want the starving masses to pay us money for the food, which I think is ridiculous, but I'll save you that tangent).

In most industrialized countries the population is pretty stable or actually declining, and it's only really in the less developed nations that populations are skyrocketing. My personal theory is that life is so crappy for these people that they need to fuck a lot in order to forget about how crappy life is. Also, we can thank organizations like the Catholic Church for discouraging contraceptives and making the situation a whole lot worse. I say let's send these people some food, some condoms, some Playstations and some iPods and the problem will go away.

[Caruso329]

And the projected end of the world is also in 2012. Don't sweat it guys, we'll be out of here before the human race can do anything too catastrophic.

[Swizzy89304]

Caruso, I really cant wait til the end of the world. Just think - we wont have to put up with all this crap from Iran, Syria, bin Liner, Blair, Bush etc.
Just a blissful afterlife where we sit on clouds, smoking Herb and jammin with our harps.

[chisme]

By Leonard David
LiveScience Senior Writer
LiveScience.com Fri Feb 24, 2:04 PM ET

A population milestone is about to be set on this jam-packed planet.

On Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the population here on this good Earth is projected to hit 6.5 billion people.

Along with this forecast, an analysis by the International Programs Center at the U.S.
Census Bureau points to another factoid, Robert Bernstein of the Bureau's Public Information Center advised LiveScience. Mark this on your calendar: Some six years from now, on Oct. 18, 2012 at 4:36 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the Earth will be home to 7 billion folks.


These are estimates, of course, but clear trends emerge from the data behind them.

A report issued by the Bureau in March 2004 noted that world population hit the 6-billion mark in June 1999. "This figure is over 3.5 times the size of the Earth's population at the beginning of the 20th century and roughly double its size in 1960," the study explained.

Even more striking is that the time required for the global population to grow from 5 billion to 6 billionâ??just a dozen yearsâ??was shorter than the interval between any of the previous billions.

On average, 4.4 people are born every second.

The population on Earth today is nearly four times the number in 1900 [graph]. Behind that phenomenal global increase is a vast gulf in birth and death rates among the world's countries. But according to population experts, this gulf is not a simple divide that perpetuates the status quo among the have and have-not nations.


"What is worrisome about this demographic divide is not the differences among nations' population growth rates, but the disparities associated with these trends ... disparities in living standards, health, and economic prospects," explained Mary Kent, co-author along with Carl Haub, of a Population Reference Bureau report issued last month titled "Global Demographic Divide."

Kent, editor of the Population Bulletin, and Haub, a senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, reported that news of declining population in Europe fueled concern about a global "birth dearth," but there is continuing population growth in developing countries. The question, they asked, is which demographic trend is the world facing?

"The reality is that both trends are occurring," Haub said. "The dramatic fertility decline during the 20th century coincided with improved health, access to family planning, economic development, and urbanization."

Kent and Haub also reported that most countries will experience population growth through 2050, as the world adds a projected 3 billion more people to the total.

Remarkably, despite the many new developments over the past 50 years, one fact looks very much the same, explained Kent and Haub: Populations are growing most rapidly where such growth can be afforded the leastâ??an observation that has changed little over time, they said.

* Ancient Skeletons Reveal First Baby Boom
* Hang in There: The 25-Year Wait for Immortality
* Older Population Could Force Retirement Age to 85
* Life Expectancy in America Hits Record High

stop those damn chinese people breeding!

[slipknotpsycho]

The earth certainly can support 6.5 billion people. We're not dying off by the masses are we? Even if the world population were to double, there would be 87.2 square kilometers of land for every person alive. World hunger isn't caused so much by overpopulation as by economic conditions. We have enough food to feed everybody, but we don't actually do what's needed to put that food into everybody's mouths (because we want the starving masses to pay us money for the food, which I think is ridiculous, but I'll save you that tangent).

In most industrialized countries the population is pretty stable or actually declining, and it's only really in the less developed nations that populations are skyrocketing. My personal theory is that life is so crappy for these people that they need to fuck a lot in order to forget about how crappy life is. Also, we can thank organizations like the Catholic Church for discouraging contraceptives and making the situation a whole lot worse. I say let's send these people some food, some condoms, some Playstations and some iPods and the problem will go away.

i've always just said they are too poor to afford tv...

[snikitysnak]

the absolute truth is that if you live in America (thank god i do) we don't really have to worry tooo much about this 6.5 billion thing. it's the third world countries and overpopulated places that will wind up having problems with starvation and overcrowding (as if they don't have enough).

[halo]

By the way things are going we will probably end up having like a nuclear war or something in the next 10 years.