Meteors striking the earth, floods ravaging the land, global warming, a hole in the ozone layer, these are all threats to this planet of ours. How many times have you heard that we have to build a defense against planet smashing rocks from space? Coast lines will be inundated with water and will sink, how many times have you heard this? Hurricanes are getting worse as are eruptions. We have heard it all and we know that none of it is good, but most people who investigate the the earth's problems know that none of these are the real threat, the threat that will destroy the entire population. The most pressing threat that this planet has, IS POPULATION GROWTH.

Population growth has become the number one problem on the planet. One looks at the U.S. which is far from the most populated country in the world, yet we have gone from about 180,000,000 in 1960 to just about 300,000,000 today. In just a short 45 years the population here has increased about 65 per cent. Everyone knows that China has the biggest population. As of the writing of this article , the Chinese population is estimated at 1,310,299,331. That is about 1 1/3 billion people. It is said that the Chinese population has grown by over 132 million since 1990. So far, as of May 29, 2006 there have been 6,282,444 births. This means that by the end of this year, births in China will exceed the population of Illinois by a couple of million. In all fairness, I have to say that the population growth in China has slowed down. The next largest country, in terms of population, is India. India is only the second country on earth to cross the one billion population mark. The CIA fact book states that the population of India is estimated to reach 1,095,351,995 on Jul1 1, 2006.

Between China and India we have a population of almost two and one half billion people. They say that more people are living today than the entire population that lived from the dawn of man. I don't know if this is true, but we sure have a lot of people alive today. Africa is a place where it is felt that we have never gotten an accurate population count. We know that there are a lot of people there, but we don't know how many, we only have a rough idea. We know that Africa has the fastest population growth rate of anywhere in the world at three percent. The closest estimate of population I can get rates it's population size at about 720,000,000. I am sure this is grossly under estimated. Even using this figure the population is growing at 2.16 million people per year. This population is starving in many places in Africa today. Global warming has taken it's toll on the water supply and because of this, there is not only a food problem, but a drinking water problem as well. It is true that if African conflicts would stop, this would ease the food supply problem somewhat, but would not eliminate it. Unfortunately food is used in many areas of Africa as a weapon against the people.

The world population is estimated to be 6,518,894,020 as of today 29 May, 2006. In 1960 it was slightly above 3,000,000. It has more than DOUBLED in a mere 45 years. Fortunately the growth rate has slowed to about .49 percent after it reached a high in the low 1960s of about 2.4 percent. Don't take too much satisfaction from this however, since the population base is so much bigger and that .49 percent is equal to about 1 percent in mid 1960's numbers.

So what does all this mean? If we put it simply, we have way more people now then in 1960, competing for less fresh water, food and energy resources. This is not the entire picture however, the dynamics are changing. We have countries that have a much greater need for resources, not only because of population, but because they are becoming more industrialized. China needs more energy than ever because of this as does India but India doesn't need it on as large a scale yet. Oil is a limited resource as is fresh water. Will we have future wars over these resources, I hope not? We have had wars in the past over oil. World War II was begun by the Japanese against us because they felt we were cutting off their resources.

What are we going to do if the population doubles again in the next 50 years? The so called experts say that this is not going to happen, that the increase will be only about 3,000,000,000. ONLY THREE BILLION. Wow that is a relief! What are these people going to drink and eat? Now we are talking about growing more corn to make fuel for our cars, using precious farm land that could be used for food crops. Are we in a downward spiral? Maybe if things were managed better we could support the extra people, but it would require massive changes. We would have to get away from oil dependency and use more of what nature has provided. Electricity should be generated from sun, sea and wind. Better batteries are needed to propel our cars or hydrogen plants that convert water to fuel. Wars have to stop and food needs to be deweaponized. Better distribution of food is a necessity. Fresh water needs to be extracted from the ocean.

Until we accomplish these goals the greatest peril we face is ourselves.

To watch the population grow click this link - http://www.optimumpopulation.org/index.html