World's 7 billionth person about to be born

When I was a child in the 1960s, this news story was predicted to happen by the turn of the last century. Population growth has slowed considerably in its rate during my lifetime.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#38;met_y=sp_pop_grow&#38;tdim=true&#38;dl=en&#38;hl=en&#38;q=global+population+growth#ctype=l&#38;strail=false&#38;nselm=h&#38;met_y=sp_pop_grow&#38;scale_y=lin&#38;ind_y=false&#38;rdim=country&#38;ifdim=country&#38;tdim=true&#38;hl=en&#38;dl=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...</a><p>Further increase in population from this already large base is predicted for what is predicted to be the rest of my lifetime, but it is now foreseeable that the world will eventually reach a peak population,<p><a href="http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Other-Information/Press_Release_WPP2010.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Other-Information/Press_Release_W...</a><p>and then decline in population over time, as is already happening in many developed countries.

&#62; and in all probability that birth will take place in China or India<p>While they are the most population-dense areas and are growing faster than other places in the world, I'm pretty sure it's more likely that the 7 billionth person <i>won't</i> be born in India or China.

No thread on population growth is complete without a reference to Dr. Al Bartlett's famous lecture, "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znsuCphHUU&#38;list=PL63DAFCD223C29352" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znsuCphHUU&#38;list=PL63DAFC...</a> :-).

So 7% of people who have EVER lived are alive right now.

I remember the Bad Religion song "10 in 2010". I guess population growth has been slowing down.

whats the sustainable number our planet can theoretically deal with? (though i know this is a loaded question).

For some reason, when I think of human growing population, I always think back to the Star Trek "The Mark of Gideon", which featured a world where overpopulation is a real problem.<p>I am sure that is not realistic but I worry that the world could one day become like that.