My blog of 21 June 2011 was entitled:   A WORLD POPULATION OF 7 BILLION .  I went on to say: If there has been any criticism of my books, it is that  I have ignored the most important parameter:  the world population .   I didn't have a full chapter dedicated to this topic in any of my publications, and not one of my 100+ Huffington Post articles treated this subject. Why? ... mostly because there was not much I could add to the subject than to say that population growth will reverse once the world becomes economically prosperous, for then, the central government will have something like Social Security in place and parents won't need to have many children to take care of them at old age . It took us from our beginnings in Africa, perhaps 300,000 years ago, to finally reach a population of 1 billion in 1804.  218 years later, we last year reached 8 billion.  However, the  good news is that the time it takes to double our population is finally increasing . What about the future?

The census figures were released, and for the first time ever ( happens every 10 years ) California lost a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.  If New York had only counted 89 more people, they would not have lost one.  Instead, it would have been Minnesota: Both liberals and conservatives seem concerned that the 7.4% growth, the smallest since those Depression years in the 1930's, should be a national concern.  Hawaii grew by 7%.  Many others feel that population growth is the biggest problem today facing humanity , right up there with global warming. Paul Ehrlich released Population Bomb 53 years ago. This all started with Thomas Malthus in 1798. However, last year, like the attitude of some noteworthy Americans today, there was a sense that a world population which did grow fast enough would actually cause problems .  You can still purchase a hardcover  of the original PB from Amazon.com for $124.50. Four years later in 1972 came Limits to Growth , blaming population gr