How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (2009)

Do you know the following facts?

  • The current world population is just over 7 billion.
  • Every year 80 million babies are born.
  • Each additional being needs water, food & energy.
  • Already more than a billion people don't have access to safe drinking clean water.
  • A can of beer uses 150 liters of water. Production of a cotton shirt takes 3000 liters of water.

These are some of the important facts shown in this program.

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?is an episode of BBC Horizon series & is narrated by Sir David Attenborough. In the program David discusses the affect of population growth on our ability to obtain food, water & energy. Also the danger to the environment due to rapid population growth is discussed. David also talks about the duty of individuals to commit to smaller families & to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth. He makes an interesting but true observation which is although we humans do care about our near ones, thinking about our species as a whole was never our strong point.

There is a prediction of 9 billion humans by 2050. But the sad thing about our water resources is that the amount of water on earth is always a constant. It has remained the same since the evolution of humans. For thousands of years the human population on earth was below 1 million.Check the image below.It rose slowly to 1 billion by 1800. Then the industrial revolution peaked & more importantly germ theory was established which resulted in better medicine & the population exploded.

There is a lady from Mexico City in the program saying how they have to flush the toilet after 2-3 people use it. Just picture this in your home (or dorm room) with you being the 3rd person. Don't read, just imagine. Image is a little disgusting, isn't it? And think about the water in a full bathtub. There are areas where a family will use water full of a bathtub for a whole week. So, am I saying that since some people are having worse living conditions, everybody should live in the same way? Of course not, but there is a difference between using resources wisely & wasting the resources.

Another thing discussed by Sir David is the relation between water, food & energy. Everything is related to everything. An effect on one parameter will have consequences on others.

The main point of the program is population growth.Any person with basic understanding & education should seriously think about controlling the population growth. It could be actually a moral obligation towards humanitythe repercussions of today's actions will be affecting future generations.