World Population Day was July 11, 2010, designated by the UN as a day to think about our increasingly crowded planet estimated at 6.8 billion people.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) set the theme for 2010 as “everyone counts,” the idea that population data are more than just numbers; they represent real human lives. For instance, the UNFPA point out that the 2001 census showed that in India, boys significantly outnumber number girls, strongly suggesting that some 2000 Indian girls are lost each day to prenatal sex selection. This revelation mobilized Indian media to report and bring daylight to the illegal practice of sex selection.
One thing I’ve been watching with great interest is the move of some large institutions to making their records more open.
In April of 2010 the World Bank launched its Open Data Initiative data.worldbank.org, which made a wealth of information on developing economies of the world freely available to anyone. Over 2,000 indicators, some going back 50 years, such as life expectancy at birth, infant mortality, and school enrollment reveal what life is like there. The World Bank hopes that people will use this information not only for research, but to create new tools and analysis to solve global problems.
More recently is the announcement by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on July 9, 2010 that the world’s largest database of food, hunger, and agricultural information is now freely and openly available to anyone at the website faostat.fao.org. In the hands of people who want to solve problems of world hunger, these tools have great potential to help. The data includes vital statistics on agricultural and food production, usage of fertilizers and pesticides, food aid shipments, food balance sheets, forestry and fisheries production, irrigation and water use, land use, population trends, trade in agricultural products, the use of agricultural machinery, and more.
The trends of making vital information freely available to anyone, open data, are an encouraging sign in an increasingly crowded planet we find ourselves in.
It has been reported that Britain’s foremost scientific organization has begun a two-year study into global population growth. A growing body of scientists believe the time has come for politicians and economists to become more reality-oriented by confronting extant scientific evidence thought to explain the recent emergence of global challenges posed by the unregulated increase in absolute global human population numbers.
The eminent Royal Society of England has established a working group of leading experts to assemble recommendations on responding ably to the unbridled growth of the human population on Earth, recommendations that could set the international agenda for tackling the looming threats to environmental degradation and human wellbeing that could result from billions of extra people on an already overpopulated planet.
Nobelist Sir John Sulston will lead the study. A failure to be open about the problems caused by the global population explosion would set back human development, he warned.
I have gone through the message of WORLD POPULATIN DAY.
Also I have noticed that as per UNFPA, there is a
decrease in the ratio of girl child to boy child..indicating the practice of illegal sex selection…It is very very sad to hear this news…
Nevertheless, there is a silverline…In the state of kerala, there exists a much much better ratio and the girl child is given equal opportunity in all respects..
Thank you for the information
The lack of effort to communicate a coherent, comprehensive analysis of the unsustainability of the global economy, something vital about the complex world we inhabit, appears similar to the silence with which scientific evidence of human population dynamics has been met during the last “lost” decade of denial.
The growth of the human species worldwide could be the proverbial mother of all human-induced global challenges. If that is so, then failing to courageously acknowledge and humanely address this predominant challenge could render efforts of humanity to overcome other human-driven, increasingly complex challenges to human wellbeing and environmental health ultimately irrelevant, I suppose.
Please consider that both those who believe human population numbers are exploding and those who believe human numbers are collapsing are correct. Globally, human numbers are undoubtedly increasing, but in some places on the surface of Earth human numbers can easily be seen decreasing. It depends upon your scope of observation. I am perceiving and thinking globally when I report human numbers are skyrocketing. In a similar manner, I can certainly recognize that human numbers in many places (eg, Algeria, Iran or Italy) have been declining. But in order to make that report it is necessary for me to change my scope of observation.
Imagine that a change in one’s scope of observation is like the difference between looking at the forest and the trees. Looking at the forest is like looking at absolute global human population numbers; whereas, looking at the trees is like looking at the population numbers in a place like Italy. Global human numbers can be increasing, while the human population numbers in Italy are decreasing.
Or imagine that we are looking at a wave, watching it move toward the shore where it crashes at our feet. As the wave we are observing moves toward us, there are many molecules in the wave that are moving in the opposite direction…….against the tide. Population numbers in Italy and many other places are moving against rapidly rising tide of absolute global human population numbers. Population numbers are simultaneously rising globally and falling locally.
So much of life and nature is indeed complex. Even so, we must not allow the acknowledged complexity of some things like the global economy to mystify, mesmerize or blind us to something comparatively simple and as evident as human population dynamics. If implications of the skyrocketing growth of absolute global human population numbers were not so profoundly and potentially threatening to the future of life as we know it and the integrity of Earth, there would be no reason for scientists with appropriate expertise to assume their responsibilities and perform their duties by rigorously scrutinizing the peer-reviewed and published research of human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth. A fidelity to science and humanity, I suppose, demands that the scientific evidence be examined carefully and reported objectively.
Perhaps we can speak openly with regard to the complexity in the “economic collosus” of humankind and to the relative simplicity in the population dynamics of the human species.
[...] Read more on EarthSky [...]
In the world population day i think we rather said Every baby girl counts especially in Africa where we do have open informations on how women are treated.
But ofcourse on on the contrary men are much oppressed by women!
You cant believe it and you want to get more just consult the recent news from TBC1 in Tanzania you will see how men cry before their wives and people those wemen who used to be oppressed are supporting the scenerio.
Can every one count?
Generally I do not reply to blogs, but I would like to say that this site really motivated me to do so. Really nice post!!
1915: 1.8 Billion people,
2010: 6.8 Billion people,
95 years: 5 Billion people,
2310: 22 Billion people,
Solution to problem: Stop Creating Babies
You need to really control the commentary listed here