The planet’s population is projected to reach 6.5 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST Saturday, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and its World Population Clock…
“Malthus would be astonished not only at the numbers of people, but at the real prosperity of about a fifth of them and the average prosperity of most of them,” said demographer Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at Rockefeller and Columbia universities. “He wouldn’t be surprised at the abject poverty of the lowest quarter or third…”
However, … the current growth of world population, estimated by Cohen at 1.1 percent a year, has slowed significantly from its peak of 2.1 percent annual growth between 1965 and 1970.
“That’s a phenomenal decline,” said Cohen, who probed the question of whether population growth is sustainable in his book, How Many People Can Earth Support?. (The short answer: It depends.)
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