It took 123 years for the world to double from one billion in 1804 to two billion in 1927. From 1987, when the number hit five billion, it took just 11 years to add a billion more. Within the last half century, the population boomed to less than 7 billion from 3 billion. By 2050, the population will reach 9.3 billion, and 97 percent of the growth will be in less developed regions.
The world’s 7 billionth person will be born Oct. 31, 2011 in India, according to a projection by researchers working with data from the United Nations.
Where a growing population will live is not the thrust of the problem, said the UN, which estimates that the world’s entire population, standing shoulder to shoulder, could fit in the city of Los Angeles. The challenges are high birthrates, dwindling resources such as food and water, coupled with increasing life expectancy.
“In the 1960s and 1970s, people expected a population bomb,” a UN researcher said in a telephone interview. “Now, we have mini-bombs going off in the most fragile parts of the world. Issues of inequality and poverty may spill over from less- developed countries, which will not be good for their neighbors or the rest of the world
The greatest challenge facing the world is that the highest birthrates are concentrated in the poorest countries. Trapped in a cycle of poverty, lack of education and opportunities the cycle is repeated with the next early pregnancy. “They are married away too often, too early and they bear children too early. So they never meet their potential,” said a researcher.
Growth in Africa remains so high that the population there could more than triple in this century, rising from today’s one billion to 3.6 billion, the report said — a sobering forecast for a continent already struggling to provide food and water for its people.
That is particularly so for some fast-growing countries whose populations are projected to skyrocket over the next century. For instance, Yemen, a country whose population has quintupled since 1950, to 25 million, would see its numbers quadruple again, to 100 million, by century’s end, if the projections prove accurate. Yemen already depends on food imports and faces critical water shortages.
In Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, the report projects that population will rise from today’s 162 million to 730 million by 2100. Malawi, a country of 15 million today, could grow to 129 million, the report projected.
The assumption behind these numbers is that food and water will be available for the billions yet unborn, and that potential catastrophes including climate change, wars or epidemics will not serve as a brake on population growth. “It is quite possible for several of these countries that are smallish and have fewer resources, these numbers are just not sustainable,” Dr. Zlotnik said.
Is Seven Billion significant to God? We strain our eyes into the future and excite our imagination with the possibilities presented in the events around us. It has been 490 (7×70) years since Luther and October 31st is also Reformation day.
The bible speaks of a future time when the fullness of the Gentiles will have come in, and then the focus shifts to Israel. So God does keep a count.