The significance of this number becomes apparent when we compare it to other population landmarks, past and future. 9.3 billion If the demographers are correct, today's teenager can expect to live to see world population increase by 50 percent over the next half-century. Fueled by immigration, U.S. population also is projected to grow by 50 percent, from today's 272 million to 394 million by 2050. Because few people regard such increases as a blessing, the fashionable solution has been to deny it will happen. The AIDS pandemic, famines, natural disasters, ethnic wars, lowered fertility, technological progress - something will come along to rescue our species from the consequences of global overcrowding.
Trouble is, the projections already incorporate a slowing fertility rate.
But population momentum threatens to push the numbers relentlessly higher. We comfort ourselves with the fact that the indigenous populations of the United States and Europe are not reproducing themselves. The slack, however, is being taken up by the world's poorest countries, where 90 percent of the births will be taking place. About 35 percent of the world is in recession. Russia's collapse, the Asian contagion, Africa's chaos, the fragile state of Latin economies all are signs of the coming times.