Today, if the United Nations is to be believed, the world population will reach seven
billion. Almost as many words have already been written about the perils of a booming population, about how humans are bad for the environment and how — if current trends are extrapolated
— the entire Western world will end up with the population density of Hamleys on Christmas Eve.
In fact, mankind does not quite behave like this. As we grow richer, we tend to breed less. Look closely at the UN data and it shows that fertility is already below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman in several countries. Extrapolate the UN’s medium-case estimates and you can find that the world population will peak (at ten billion) at the end of this century. Then decline starts, with the world’s supply of Americans running out in December 2400, and the last Frenchman keeling over in January 2501. And the Irish, incidentally, will go the way of the dodo long before any of us.
Extrapolate the data and we need not worry about the construction of a second Millennium Dome. There will be no one around to celebrate, let alone build it, with mankind having lasted for less than 250,000 years. A rather pathetic innings when one considers that the dinosaurs lasted 160 million years. It’s not something the modern-day Malthusians will readily admit, but those same UN figures suggest that we homo sapiens may end up having spent less time on this earth than the Triceratops.
The moral of the story is simple: you can conjure up almost any disaster scenario if you extrapolate statistics far enough into the future. Just ask the global warming alarmists. In fact, disasters tend to be averted because mankind has a genius for adaptation and survival. Humans are the solution. The more people we have, the more brainpower — and the more chances of finding solutions to these seemingly insurmountable problems. That’s why the birth of the seven billionth baby should be treated like the birth of every child: an occasion for simple, thankful celebration.
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