In less than a week, by the end of this month, the United Nations announced that the official population of the world will reach a staggering seven billion human beings.
2,000 years ago, the world's population was around 300 million and we didn't reach a billion people until 1800. The second billion was notched up in 1927. The three billion mark was reached by my second birthday in 1959; it then rose to four billion in 1974, and accelerated to five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and seven billion in 2011.
By the time you are 40 years old, my dear Yael, in 2050 it is estimated that the world population will be aat least 9.3 billion people and more than 10 billion by 2100.
While extended life expectancy due to some health improvements in the poorer parts of the world, is a major contributor to this meteoric rise in population, this clearly presents a major challenge for humankind. There is limit to the amount of land available for growing food crops and there is a finite volume of water on the planet.
It is very much my prediction that the continued population explosion will be among the biggest problems for the people of this world.
Grandpa Jonathan
Prague, Czech Republic
