27 October 2011 Last updated at 00:18

The world at seven billion

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

 


United Kingdom

 

POPULATION7128754808

Every hour, there are:

15,347Births6,418Deaths

Average yearly growth

+1.162%

 

In a few days there will be 7 billion humans on the Earth.  Please take a look at the growth graph and note the rate of increase.  Surely it is facetious to blame lack of resources as our problem.  This graph shows us glaringly what the problem is and we appear to be completely helpless to solve it.

 

We seem to be caught in the grip of a concept that we have a sacred right to have as many children as we wish and then expect the government and the world economy to provide them with jobs and “the good life.”

 

And now, of course, our efforts to feed ourselves has and is still ripping out the life support structures that our dear planet has taken millions of years to build.  Although our awareness and experience of global warming portend extreme misery and sadness; what is even more saddening if not maddening is that multinationals are paying businesses and bogus think tanks to claim that humans are NOT responsible for the global warming results of the destruction of the soil, destruction of the rain forests and pollution of our air, soil and water.  And our media gives this ranting equal air and print time as if these opinions reflected anything other than madness and represented equal weight as the thousands of scientists who have accumulated valid statistics to the contrary.

 

Perhaps we need to cease blaming the actions of “business” for doing what business does best- making money- and blame ourselves for supporting the disaster so obviously surrounding us.

 

We must remember that companies sell only what people will buy.  Governments can only survive when they provide what people will tolerate.  I’ll only mention one example and let the reader consider the implications.

 

There were years of publications by the Russian intelligentsia pointing out the corruption and exploitation by the Monarchy.  However, the exploited did very little until the wives of the dockworkers in St. Petersburg [Petrograd at that time] took to the streets when they could no longer buy bread.  Men with rifles followed and:

 

“An estimated 90,000 women marched through the streets, shouting “Bread” and “Down With the Autocracy!” and “Stop the War!” These women were tired, hungry, and angry. They worked long hours in miserable conditions in order to feed their families because their husbands and fathers were at the front, fighting in World War I. They wanted change. They weren’t the only ones.

The following day, more than 150,000 men and women took to the streets to protest. Soon more people joined them and by Saturday, February 25, the city of Petrograd was basically shut down — no one was working.”