Newborn Danica Camacho, the Philippines' symbolic seven billionth baby, as part of the United Nations' seven billion global population projection, lies on her mother's chest in the Fabella Maternity hospital in Manila, Oct. 31, 2011. (AP)
(CBS/AP)
MANILA, Philippines - Countries around the world marked the world's population reaching 7 billion Monday with lavish ceremonies for newborn infants symbolizing the milestone and warnings that there may be too many humans for the planet's resources.
While demographers are unsure exactly when the world's population will reach the 7 billion mark, the U.N. is using Monday to symbolically mark the day. A string of festivities are being held worldwide, with a series of symbolic 7-billionth babies being born.
The celebrations began in the Philippines, where baby Danica May Camacho was greeted with cheers and an explosion of photographers' flashbulbs at Manila's Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital. She arrived two minutes before midnight Sunday, but doctors say that was close enough to count for a Monday birthday.
Video: 7 billion people, 3 different worlds
Swelling population compounding world's woes
Earth at 7B: What's your number?
Swelling population compounding world's woes
Earth at 7B: What's your number?
The baby received a shower of gifts, from a chocolate cake marked "7B Philippines" to a gift certificate for shoes.
"She looks so lovely," the mother, Camille Galura, whispered as she cradled the 5.5-pound baby, who was born about a month premature.
The baby was the second for Galura and her partner, Florante Camacho, a struggling driver who supports the family on a tiny salary.
Dr. Eric Tayag of the Philippines' Department of Health said later that the birth came with a warning.
"Seven billion is a number we should think about deeply," he said.
"We should really focus on the question of whether there will be food, clean water, shelter, education and a decent life for every child," he said. "If the answer is 'no,' it would be better for people to look at easing this population explosion."
Demographer Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University echoed that concern in an interview with CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell, warning that rapid population growth, "makes almost every other problem more difficult to solve."
"If we could slow our growth rate, we have an easier job in dealing with all the other things like education, health, employment, housing, food, the environment and so on," Cohen told CBS News.
Click on the video player below to see the full interview with Cohen:
Last week, CBS Evening News reported how researchers with The National Geographic had averaged out the characteristics of the world population to come up with a "typical person."
The National Geographic researchers found nine million people who had the most in common. They overlayed the faces of 190,000 of them to create one image: Earth's everyman.
The average person is Han Chinese so his ethnicity is Han. He is 28 years old. He is Christian. He speaks Mandarin. He does not have a car. He does not have a bank account.
So CBS News went looking for that guy. We called and emailed Chinese-American groups around the country for help. And one of them led us to Main Street, in Queens, New York, and Mu Li.
National geographic researchers averaged the world's population to come up with a composite image of the most typical person in the world. CBS News found someone who fits the bill: Mu Li, a Han Chinese immigrant living in New York City,
(Credit: CBS/National Geographic)He arrived five months ago from Chong Qing, a southwest China mega-city of 28 million people. Li is working in New York as a reporter for the People's Daily, China's state newspaper.
Li is Han Chinese. Mandarin is his first language. And he recognizes the universality of his personal profile.
"I have a common face, a common background. Suddenly you realize, you say, 'Wow, you are the most typical person in the world,'" Li said.
Li fits other criteria. He's right-handed, works in a service industry, lives in a city, owns a cell phone, but no car.
We showed him National Geographic's composite image, and he admits he sees himself in it, chuckling at the suggestion that he may be better looking.
Li's reign as Earth's Everyman will not last long. Earth's population could reach 8 billion people in 2026. By then, the most typical human, will be from India.
Illustrative infographic by Jorn van Dooren about birth of world’s 7 billionth inhabitant. With around 75,000 births per day India has the highest chance of any country to reach the population milestone
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10/31/2011 @ 10:32AM |128 views
7 Billion Reasons Malthus Was Wrong
You’d think after 200 years, folks would eventually say, “That Malthus guy? Kind of wrong.” Yet, with the (projected) birth today of the world’s 7 billionth occupant, there’s no shortage of media hand-wringingabout the dim prospects of our world from here.Thomas Malthus is famous (or infamous, depending on your view) for his belief that human population growth would outpace food production—and fast—which would lead to societal ruin. He was downright dismissive of the idea of “unlimited progress” in food production.
Can there be “unlimited progress” in food production? Not sure. But Malthus would never imagine that, with 6 billion more people than in his day, we have a holiday dedicated to handing total strangers handfuls of free food. Utterly non-nutritional food at that!
You can’t really blame Malthus for getting this so wrong. Long-term forecasts are right devilish. Example, the London Times columnist who predicted in 1894 that by 1950, London would be buried under 9 feet of manure likely died before he could have any egg on his face. (Though, no doubt, he had enough time to surmise that the horse-dropping build-up was going awfully slowly.) There was no way for him to know in a few short years, the combustion engine would make horse-drawn transport a cute relic for honeymooners.
And that’s how these long-term forecasts go. The peak oil date certain (the point at which oil production hits an apex and starts falling) has come and gone multiple times over the past decades. Yet, since the concept of “peak oil” was first popularized by Marion Hubbert in 1956, the amount of oil we produce has increased vastly. So too has the amount of known reserves in the ground. There was just no way for him to predict we’d be drilling in thousands of feet of water—or “fracking”! (Heck, in 1956, “frack” was still what polite Dads said after their thumbs got in the way of their hammers.) Or that we’d even have the technology to find the oil (or gas) to deep-water drill (or frack).
The popular 1968 book the Population Bomb posited that in the 1970s, hundreds of millions would starve to death. The theory was that if food production is growing at X rate and the population growing at much faster Y rate, that could pose quite a problem. But then, along came Norman Borlaug, who invented high-yielding, disease-resistant dwarf wheat. (Thank goodness Norman’s mom wasn’t a Malthusian.) Now, dwarf wheat may make those who shun “frankenfoods” mad, but it also meant the emerging world’s burgeoning populations didn’t all starve.
(Not too mention that sticky question, if you buy whole-hog into Malthus’s [long-disproven] concept, of how exactly you get the population to that lower, appropriate level. Let’s move on.)
I don’t care what it’s on—economies, capital markets, wheat yields, hemline trends—long-term forecasts are fraught with peril. And ones that underestimate humanity’s ingenuity and ability to problem-solve are particularly faulty. Yes, pockets of the world face famine—usually in regions with corrupt, despotic governments. But overall, the world hasn’t outgrown its ability to feed itself. Someone invented the steel plow, the tractor, the threshing machine, better fertilizers. Handily, someone also discovered penicillin, the pasteurization process, the Polio vaccine and DDT so we have a better shot at getting past age 5. (And the iPhone too, so we can live, not starve and be entertained all the while.) Malthus didn’t think about the iPhone anymore than he thought about dwarf wheat or the MMR vaccine. That doesn’t make him a bad person, just rather unimaginative.
And while global population has grown, life expectancies keep increasing, quality of life keeps improving, and per capita GDP keeps expanding. So bring on number 8 billion! (Malthus will still be wrong then.)
This constitutes the views, opinions and commentary of the author as of October 2011 and should not be regarded as personal investment advice. No assurances are made the author will continue to hold these views, which may change at any time without notice. No assurances are made regarding the accuracy of any forecast made. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in stock markets involves the risk of loss.
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