On October 31, earth will gain its seven billionth inhabitant, according to official UN population projections.
Of course, the data are not really accurate enough to predict the arrival of human number 7bn to the nearest day, or even year, but the symbolic moment has aroused an upsurge in the debate around “overpopulation” that has ebbed and flowed since Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798.
Not since the “population bomb” alarm of the 1960s and early 1970s – when there were half as many people on the planet as there are today – has the issue been so prominent in the public arena.
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