World population passed 6.5 billion today
by Arthur
Posted on Sunday, February 26th, 2006 at 9:41 pm CET
This morning at 1:16am CET, Earth’s population hit 6.5 billion people. The next benchmark will be six years from now; the Earth will be home to 7 billion people on 18 October 2012.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, the estimated number of people ever born is 106 billion (106,000,000,000). That means that 6.13 per cent of all people every born are living right now!
If the first humans were born around 200,000 years ago, and the average lifespan is, let’s say, 50 years (lifespan of Neanderthalers was 20, classic Rome 28 and life expectancy currently lies between 77 and 81) then that means there have been 4,000 generations since homo sapiens first evolved. So from 4,000 generations, six per cent of all those people are living right now in this generation! That puts the exponential population growth into perspective, doesn’t it?
Some more interesting statistics from the PBS:
- 261 – People born every minute
- 310,000,000 – Population in 1000
- 1,600,000,000 – Population in 1900
- 9,000,000,000 – Estimated population in 2050
This morning at 1:16am CET, Earth’s population hit 6.5 billion people. The next benchmark will be six years from now; the Earth will be home to 7 billion people on 18 October 2012.
According to the Population Reference Bureau, the estimated number of people ever born is 106 billion (106,000,000,000). That means that 6.13 per cent of all people every born are living right now!
If the first humans were born around 200,000 years ago, and the average lifespan is, let’s say, 50 years (lifespan of Neanderthalers was 20, classic Rome 28 and life expectancy currently lies between 77 and 81) then that means there have been 4,000 generations since homo sapiens first evolved. So from 4,000 generations, six per cent of all those people are living right now in this generation! That puts the exponential population growth into perspective, doesn’t it?
Some more interesting statistics from the PBS:
- 261 – People born every minute
- 310,000,000 – Population in 1000
- 1,600,000,000 – Population in 1900
- 9,000,000,000 – Estimated population in 2050