What's the difference between 6 and 7? About 11 years ...
Gradually over the past few months I've checked the care domain links. Deleting those where the domain is now "For Sale", broken, or the content is plain out of date. The final domain was the SCIENCES. It's the largest still and while the links are monsters, it is interesting working through them occasionally.
One change caught my eye last month in the 'Environment, Sustainability, Ecology & EcoSystem Health' listing (now former h2cm website). I clicked on Six Billion and Beyond and duly found that it has been retired from pbs.org. A few weeks ago I'd shared with students and have included on the CARDI conference poster the fact that today it is believed that the Earth's human population reaches 7 billion.
Looking back Six Billion and Beyond aired in 1999. So in 11-12 years there are an extra billion souls. You have to ask:
- What will we all drink and eat?
- Will we all have a (dry) home?
- Will we all read? (Have access to information and info technology)
- What will this latest generation believe in?
- Whose beliefs will they be?
- Can the 7 Billionth human being of Earth be a true citizen?
- Before that - for how long will they be allowed to be a child?
- Will they pray? Who to and why - choice?
- Will they have to fight (in a uniform)?
- What will their sense of quality of life be?
- Will that 7 Billionth person and their family have access to:
- health information?
- basic health care?
- education?
- What space is there for their human rights?
- Can technology finally deliver Socially?
Additional links:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
The world is home to 7 billion people but how far has it come?
The population milestone is a reminder that there is much work to do on sexual and reproductive health and HIV if we are to meet the millennium development goals by 2015, The Guardian, Monday 31 October.
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965