ACCORDING TO THE UN, the seventh billion person on the planet will be born before the end of October.
It’s estimated that the milestone will be reached on or around 31 October, and the United Nations has launched a campaign entitled ’7 Billion Actions’ in order to build awareness around the challenges of a world of seven billion.
However the New Scientist is reporting that there could be a dispute over the UN’s figures, with Fred Pearce writing about census data which is unreliable and outdated.
It’s also suspected that millions of births and deaths are not being recorded, and that the birth rate in many countries is not known.
While the UN is warning of the pressures of supporting a population of seven billion, The Guardian reports that some experts feel that environmental and other pressures on the planet mean that the prediction of 10 billion people by the end of the century may not be realised.
It’s estimated that the earth’s population reached one billion around 1800, that it had doubled to two billion by 1927. However it took until 1960 to grow by 1.5 to reach three billion, and reached five billion in 1987. The six billionth person was born in 1999.
As for the 10 billion projection, the Population Research Institute is asking everybody to just relax…
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