News Forum - Baby #8 billion: Manila marks world population milestone

[Thaiger]

Calling someone “one in a million” just doesn’t have the same strength that it used to. The world population has now hit eight billion people. And who is the lucky eight billionth person? It’s hard to say exactly, but a newborn baby girl in Manila has been chosen as the eight billionth global citizen for this new population milestone. Vinice Mabansag was born at 1.29am at Dr Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Tondo, Manila. Reporting in Coconuts did not elaborate on who declared the eight millionth baby or how that distinction was determined. But a little knowledge of the government-run […]

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[HolyCowCm]

Bummer. 8 billion is not a good sign for Mother Earth. 

[BigHewer]

It took 200,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion. 

It took 12 years for us to increase from 7 billion to 8 billion

[Grumpish]

8 billion. Overpopulation is the real herd of elephants in the climate change room - but gets largely ignored by the hand-wringing tree-huggers. As it's mainly a third world issue it is considered a bit un-PC to talk about it, plus there is no money in it for the eco-industry.  

[Poolie]

They talked about it non-stop when China had the one child policy. Oddly enough.

[Guest1]

1 hour ago, BigHewer said:

It took 200,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion. 

It took 12 years for us to increase from 7 billion to 8 billion

But it is slowing down:

4 to 5 billion was 74-87, 13 years

5-6 billion was 87-99, 12 years,

6-7 billion was 99-2011, also 12 years

7-8 , 2011-2022, so more 11 years

more people still needing 11-12 years for "the next billion"

 

[Soidog]

I watched a documentary a few years back where a bunch of “experts” got together to try and predict the theoretical maximum of people earth could sustain. They couldn’t agree in an exact number but thought it was somewhere between 11 billion and 12 billion

[Soidog]

56 minutes ago, Poolie said:

They talked about it non-stop when China had the one child policy. Oddly enough.

Nothing odd about it. Population control isn’t about dictating how many children people should have and forcing them to abort or be a social pariah if they don’t. It’s about educating people about contraception and stopping the poor and uneducated from having large families. Niger in Africa has the highest family numbers in the world. With some women having 10 or 12 Children. Of course the CCP and its supporters wouldn’t even start to understand that. 

[Fanta]

5 hours ago, Soidog said:

It’s about educating people about contraception and stopping the poor and uneducated from having large families

Bigger families are DIY social security nets for poor parents.

Isn’t the bigger picture about redistributing the resources away from the “golden billion” to the other 7 billion? 

[Soidog]

4 hours ago, Fanta said:

Bigger families are DIY social security nets for poor parents.

Isn’t the bigger picture about redistributing the resources away from the “golden billion” to the other 7 billion? 

I totally agree. There is no point expecting poor people to have 2.2 kids when they need them to subsidise income in their older age. Both things are required in order to bring population increases down. 
 

Many countries however go way beyond what is needed to secure finances in later life and in some cases the large family become a financial burden when supplying food for the family. In part of Africa people either have little knowledge of contraception or they don’t have easy and cheap access to it. It isn’t a one dimensional problem. Like many global issues they are complex and require a number of things to be done in parallel. 

[Guest1]

11 hours ago, Soidog said:

I watched a documentary a few years back where a bunch of “experts” got together to try and predict the theoretical maximum of people earth could sustain. They couldn’t agree in an exact number but thought it was somewhere between 11 billion and 12 billion

Isn't it more that 10/11ish billions will be the max amount, as soon as the birth numbers meats the deaths numbers, by reaching the max aging times of the mass? Right now, only black africa still has growing elder ages "options" by decades, with health and food situation improving. In the developed countries and the rest of the world, there it is measured in "x month longer as the last generation before" , but not in years or decades any more. And purely by medical developments, it seems.

[Grumpish]

14 hours ago, Fanta said:

Bigger families are DIY social security nets for poor parents.

Isn’t the bigger picture about redistributing the resources away from the “golden billion” to the other 7 billion? 

Big families as a support system was a model that worked well in a time and place where infant mortality was 50% plus, and most adults didn't make it to their 40th birthday, but not now.