7 Billion and Counting - By: Rachel H.

On Halloween of October 31^st, 2011 the world’s population reached a whopping 7 billion people!

Over the past few years’ overpopulation has been becoming an ever increasing world issue. The population growth rate is increasing; the population will only continue to increase, which will only put more strain on our planet.  This issue impacts everyone both present and future. The amount of strain being put on the earth today makes scientists wonder how long it will be until the pressure needs to be released.  The idea of world population was first explored by Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek, a cloth merchant in the year 1677. Utilising maps and spherical geography he estimated that the earth would not be able to support more than 13.385 billion people. The years since Leeuwenhoek’s estimation the world’s population has risen at tremendous rates. For example from the 1920’s to the 1970’s the worlds population has nearly doubled and from the 1970’s to 2011 it has nearly doubled again. 

In the 1900’s the estimated life expectancy was 51 for men and 54 for women. Today, however these numbers have drastically increased to about 82 for men and 85 for women. This is due to increases in medical technology such as drugs and treatments. This may also be due to technological advancements like cell phones (ability to use in emergencies) and methods of transportation (electric wheelchairs) believe it or not.  The fact that the human population continually expands and grows should not be a huge surprise to us. Children on this earth are raised in the same cycle: go to school, be a good member of society, go to university or college, get a job, get married and of course have more children. Reproducing and multiplying is just something that is in our nature and is one of the major reasons our population growth will still continue to rise. Your grandmother had your mother, your mother had you, and you will possibly have your children, who then will have their own children and the cycle will just continue to repeat itself over and over again among the billions of children in our world today. Now that people are living longer, this only adds a longer lasting affect to population growth.

Will the world be able to continue supporting our rapid population growth?  How much longer can it withstand our technological impacts? I guess we will just have to wait to find out!

To see how you fit into the population of 7 billion visit: http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/7bil-global-village/.

By: Rachel H.