As of right now, the population of the planet is 6.950
billion people. There are a number of sites that keep a running tally - I will include
the links to them below.
Perhaps the more significant
statistic is not the actual human population of the Earth, but the rate of change of
that population. Ecologists believe that the planet and each environmental subdivision
of the planet has a finite "carrying capacity", the maximum population of any species
that can be sustainably supported. Agriculture has probably increased the carrying
capacity for humans (though at the expense of other species - but that is a different
discussion!) but now the population is growing so fast that there is some doubt as to
whether we can improve life-supporting technologies fast enough to keep
up.
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