Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
—Isaiah 17:12
4483 The Doubling Population
It took from Creation to 1850 to reach 1 billion people. Since the population of the world in 1650 was an estimated 500 million, a doubling of world population took place in 200 years.
But it took only 80 years for the next doubling, as the population reached 2 billion around 1930.
In 1976, the population was over 4 billion—a doubling in 46 years. By 1980, it reached 45 billion. And it is estimated that the doubling rate is every 35 years.
4484 Four Billion People Now
The world’s population passed the 4.5-billion mark in early 1980, according to the population clock at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The clock ticks away at the rate of about 2.2 persons a second, or about 190,000 a day. The rate is set by statistics the museum receives periodically from the Population Reference Bureau, a private agency that collects data from every available source.
The world’s population did not reach one billion until about 1850. The two-billion mark was reached in 1930 and the world grew to three billion in 1961.
4485 Estimated Gains Per Day
A United Nations estimate reports a net gain in the world population of 129,600 during every twenty-four-hour period.
Marston Bates of the University of Michigan estimated that the number of people in the world grows by at least eighty every minute, about the equivalent of the 3,500,000 population of Chicago every month and by about forty-eight million a year.
4486 How People Are Distributed On Earth
According to the U.N. Demographic Yearbook released in 1977, the world’s population is distributed on earth as follows:
56.9% in Asia
11.9% in Europe
10.1% in Africa
8.2% in Latin America
6.4% in the Soviet Union
6.0% in North America
0.05% in Ocean Islands
4487 A Continuous 2000-Story Building
If the present rate growth continues for 900 years, there will be some 60,000,000,000,000,000 people on earth. This is 60 million billion people. Or 100 persons for each square inch of earth, including the land and sea.
Such a large number might be housed in a continuous 2,000-story building covering our entire planet—the upper 1,000 stories would simply contain the apparatus for running the gigantic unit. Half of the bottom 1,000 stories occupied by pipes, wires, and elevator shafts. This would leave 3 or 4 yards of floor space for each person.
4488 Standing Room In Thousand Years
“In 1000 years there will be just about standing room for us,” declared Sir Charles Darwin (grandson of Charles Darwin) at a Brown University convocation. Commenting on this prediction, Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of the California Institute of Technology, said: “If there is standing room only, maybe the birth rate will go down.”
—Providence Bulletin
4489 Equalling Earth’s Mass
A scientist has predicted that, if the world’s population grows at the current rate for seventy centuries, the mass of humanity will equal the total mass of the earth.
4490 Another India In 20 Years
New Delhi (UPI)—By the year 2000, Indians will be living in kibbutz-style communes and eating foods like algae. That is the grim forecast issued by the 13-member panel of the National Committee of Science and Technology (NCST), a government body.
India’s present population is 573 million and is increasing by 13 million each year.
“Even if the present family planning program is a complete success, in 2000 our population would be 960 million people. We would have thus added a second India within two or three decades,” the NCST warned.
4491 The Largest Crowd
The largest crowd of human beings ever assembled in one place happened during a Hindu feast in India on January 21, 1966. A total of 5,000,000 people assembled in an estimated area of over 700 acres.
The Jacob’s Formula for estimating the size of crowds, gives an allowance of area per person varying from 4 per square feet (tight) to 9½ per square feet (loose).
4492 Most Number Of Children
The greatest number of children produced by a mother is 69, by the wife of Fyodor Vassilet, a peasant near Moscow, Russia. In 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets. Most of her children attained their majority.
That was in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the highest reported case is 32 children, born to Raimundo Carnauba and wife in Brazil. She was married at 13, and so far has 24 sons and 8 daughters.
4493 Odds: One in 3 Billion
In Sidney, Australia, John Struthers’ wife gave birth to her fifth set of twins. A Sidney gynecologist said the odds against that many twins in one family are about three billion to one. The boy and girl, each weighing five pounds, brought the Struthers brood to fourteen children. Four arrived singly.
4494 No Daughters In Four Generations
One of the most remarkable single-sex families, those which produce only boys or only girls over long periods, was discovered in California a few years ago. In four consecutive generations it had produced 35 sons and no daughters, the head of the family, an only child, having had three sons, his grandfather 12 sons and his great-grandfather 19 sons.
—Selected
4495 “Mind Your Business”
From Cebu City in the Philippines comes this news.
“Mind your own business,” a father of eight told a family planning motivator, and then he brandished a bolo (knife) and ran after the man.
For that close call, Jose B. Burgos, an employee of the Cebu Family Planning Council, is tendering his resignation.
“I did not ask food from you to feed my children,” shouted the husband of eight children, and his wife is on the way to the ninth.
4496 Czardines
Teacher: “Who can tell me what the former ruler of Russian was called?”
Class: “Czar.”
Teacher: “Correct; and what was his wife called?”
Class: “Czarina.”
Teacher: “What were the Czar’s children called?”
After a brief silence, a voice in the back of the classroom answered: “Czardines!”
—Pastor’s Manual
SOME PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
4497 Impossible Migration
Some people think emigration to other planets is the solution to the population-explosion problem. But it would require passenger ships seating 100 persons leaving every minute just to stay even with the present population growth.
—Space World
4498 Politics Of Marriages
Couples who marry at an early age tend to have more children, while those who marry later in life obviously spend fewer child-bearing years together.
Countries which are worried about over-or-under-population, therefore, have hit upon the politics of marriage as a solution to their population problems.
The Soviet Union, for example, encourages early marriages and large families in an effort to boost its declining birth rate. Families with more than four children receive government grants and mothers of ten or more are declared “Mother-Heroines of the People,” while bachelors must pay a discriminatory income tax of 6 percent.
In China, on the other hand, where overpopulation is an acute social and economic problem, young people are actively encouraged to postponed marriage until age 27 or later.
4499 Pregnancies by Rate of Intelligence
A Church of England clergyman has suggested that married couples be licensed by the state to have children according to the level of their intelligence. Said the Reverend Stanley Owen, rector of Elmdon-with-Bickenhill: “It may sound drastic, but the position is such that if drastic measures are not taken, the result will be absolute murder.”
In Owen’s view a normal couple should be licensed to have two children, a couple graded as inferior should be limited to one, and an exceptional couple could have three or four. Such rigid state birth control would prevent starvation in the year 2000, he says.
—J. D. Douglas
4500 The Paper Pill
London (AFP)—A paper contraceptive pill will be manufactured in Britain for sale at home and abroad, the Daily Express reported.
The paper pill was invented in China. It looks something like a postage stamp.
The paper said the pill would be exported to developing countries. It was said to be cheaper than the normal pill and allowed for a more accurate dosing of the hormones used in its preparation.
4501 He Was Taking Pills
Helbronn, West Germany (AFP)—Six children in seven years despite the pill. A man in Helbronn now in his 50’s was so incensed over this increase in his family that he complained to his doctor.
“Modern medicine is no good,” the man protested. One reason: the father had been taking the contraceptive pills instead of his wife. He didn’t trust her to take them regularly, he told his doctor.
4502 Zero Population Growth
The world is talking about ZPG: Zero Population Growth as Essential.
Men ask, “Will not ZPG automatically produce ZEG: Zero Economic Growth—Stagnation?”
4503 Growth Trends In The U.S.
Washington, D. C. (EP)—A report here said the United States faces the possibility of reaching “zero population growth” within this century. The last five years have seen the largest decrease in births since such figures were first kept in 1850.
Third development was announced by the Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies, which noted that a decline in births has replaced the post-World War II baby boom. There were 15.5 percent fewer children under five years of age in 1970 than in 1960.
“More remarkable,” the Center said, is the fact that this decrease coincides with the greatest increase in the number of people most capable of having children—a 29 percent increase between 1960 and 1970 in the age fifteen to thirty-four category.
In addition, there was in the sixties a 52 percent gain in the number of people between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, the most fertile age range, the Center observed.
It predicted that the large war-baby generation may not produce children as abundantly as had been expected. The Center attributes this fact largely to such developments as the birth control pill, intrauterine devices, and changing attitudes toward family size.
—Gospel Herald
4504 Japan’s Two-Child Family
Tokyo (AFP)—Faced with an “explosive” population, both domestic and global, the majority of Japanese no longer want the population of Japan to grow, according to a nationwide opinion poll.
This became clear through the poll conducted by the Japanese daily Mainichi with a total of 2,226 persons over 20 years of age interviewed across the country for three days.
An overwhelming majority (70 percent) supported the two-child family, with two percent saying that even two are “too many.”
4505 Bulgaria To Buy Babies
Sofia, Bulgaria (AP)—Faced with a labor shortage on population growth near zero, Bulgaria is trying to buy more babies.
Only 11,000 new Bulgarians were born in 1972, making the official population total 8,601,000 a growth rate of less than one-eight of one percent.
To stimulate births, the government this year increased cash payments and allowances for children.
A family which brings three children into the world will get 850 leva ($515) in cash payments at the time of the birth, the biggest lump, 500 leva ($303) coming from the third child. The total of $515 is more than half the annual $943 average wage paid in Bulgaria.
The family will also get monthly allowances totalling the equivalent of $49, same as the minimum monthly wage in Bulgaria. The largest allowance, $21, is for the third child.
The communist leadership has also taken a series of other measures to make having children more attractive.
—Lower prices for children’s clothing.
—A stricter abortion law allowing legal abortions only for women who have borne two children.
—Expansion of state nurseries where working mothers can leave children up to three years of age.
—More leave for pregnancy and birth. For a third child a working mother gets leave with full pay for eight months and a partial pay for another six. A woman can stay away from her job for up to three years after a birth without losing pension rights or salary level.
4506 Epigram On Population Explosion
• A father of 10 was asked why he had so many children. “Because,” he said, “we never wanted the youngest one to be spoiled!”
• From the Des Moines Register: “She was reported in fair condition after giving birth to quintuplets Friday night. The father is a storkbroker.”
• From a church notice in the York, Pa., Gazette and Daily: “Family Night—A Gift for the Largest Family Present. Sermon: “Thou Fool.””
• A book published in Bombay, India, entitled Planned Families contains the following publisher’s warning: “Any reproduction strictly forbidden without our written permission.”
—Noel Anthony
• Mark Cordell, manager of the Loveland, Colo., Chamber of Commerce, was attending a discussion of the population explosion when he was called home. His wife had just given birth to a boy.
—UPI
See also: Births and Babies .