Even as we plan the Race to Mars or explore other Earth-like planets, it’s always a good idea to know what’s the status right here at home. It’s World Population Day today, and we had a few questions. How much do we really know about everyone on Earth?
How many people live on the earth right now, today on the 11th of July, 2017?
7,517,529,130.
Head on to the ticking Worldometer, a real-time population ticker which, be forewarned, will baffle you if you think about the number of births happening at that very moment. 7.3 crore people were already born this year, while 3 crore have died.
How many people have ever lived on earth?
An estimated 107 billion, or 10700 crore people.
Our current population makes up about 7% of all the people who’ve ever lived on Earth. In other words, there’s one living person on earth for every 15 dead people that ever lived.
How many of us can the earth possibly can support?
10 billion, or 1000 crore people.
That’s assuming we’ll all stop eating meat, the production of which takes up 4 times as much land as a comparable quantity of agricultural crops, because of the land requirement for livestock rearing and feed production. If the entire world doesn’t move to a plant-based diet, the earth’s carrying capacity, or the total number of people its resources can support, would be short of 10 billion.
When will we reach ‘peak population’?
2100, possibly.
United Nations projections suggest peak population - a world of 10 billion - by 2100. However, some scientists are even more optimistic and give us more time, as the global fertility rate inches toward the replacement level (the rate at which children replace their parents in the population) at 2.1 children per woman .
Where is population growth occurring?
Urban centres in low and middle income countries.
According to some demographers, the majority of growth over the next 20 years is likely to be because of an increase in population in the cities of low and middle income countries.
When did we reach our first billion?
1804.
By 1804, we were at a billion - twice the size we were two centuries ago in 1600. From then on, it took us only 130 years for us to hit the second billion - something which had taken us 1800 years the first time over! Our seventh billion, in 2011, took us all of 12 years.
How quickly have we grown?
Very.
We’ve doubled in about 50 years - from 3.7 billion people in 1970 to 7.5 billion in 2017.
Image courtesy Pixabay.com
How has the population changed over time?
If the birth of the Earth as know it happened 4.6 billion years ago, our very first ancestors showed up only 200 thousand years ago. Around 1650 is when population starts dipping upwards, even if by a small rate. Growth rates accelerate from the mid 1700 onwards; 1950 is when the graph really takes off, after a considerable spike around the early 1900s. The rate has reduced a little since 2000, but overall we’re still growing.
Which year did we grow the fastest?
1968.
The population increased by 2.1% in 1968 - the highest as per records. Since then, the annual growth rate’s been dipping; we now stand at 1.1% in 2017.
What is India’s contribution to Earth’s inhabitant colony?
1,342,913,927 (134 crores or 1.3 billion).
We’re second in line after China of course, but we’re fast catching up. China’s only 4.6 crore people ahead of us. Both China and India are expected to have roughly equal populations of 1.44 billion people by 2024. All in a few years’ work, we say!
What do we need to do to prevent ‘overpopulation’?
A lot.
Adopt low-carbon lifestyles, and work towards reaching the replacement level through a continuing decrease in fertility rates - women’s empowerment can go a long way in reaching this goal.
Bonus question: What’s the population of Facebook?
Two billion.
Less than five years after hitting one billion, Facebook recently announced that it has two billion monthly users. If Facebook were a country, it would be the most populous country in the world.
Cover image for representational purposes only, courtesy Pexels.com
