7 Billion Reasons for Hope, not Fear

There are now 7 billion people on the planet, according to the United Nations, and this is much more of a blessing than a curse. While more people means more mouths to feed, it also means more minds to solve humanity’s problems. If the world’s economy becomes more integrated, and if our policies do more to limit the collateral damage that we do, the promise of more population will dramatically overwhelm the risks. Everything we eat or drink or drive draws both on the physical gifts of our planet and on human ingenuity. While more people may tax the physical resources of the world - both directly, by consuming more from farms and coal mines, and inadvertently, by generating more greenhouse gases - they only increase the stock of human knowledge. Ideas don’t get eroded by use.