There will soon be 7 billion people on the earth. How will the earth be able to support that many people? National Geographic is spending an entire year writing about this alarming population growth and its impacts on the earth and the rest of us. According to them, there is no reason to panic — yet. Even though: “With the population still growing by about 80 million each year, it’s hard not to be alarmed. Right now on Earth, water tables are falling, soil is eroding, glaciers are melting, and fish stocks are vanishing. Close to a billion people go hungry each day. Decades from now, there will likely be two billion more mouths to feed, mostly in poor countries. There will be billions more people wanting and deserving to boost themselves out of poverty. If they follow the path blazed by wealthy countries—clearing forests, burning coal and oil, freely scattering fertilizers and pesticides—they too will be stepping hard on the planet’s natural resources.” It’s hard to imagine how the earth can support 7 billion people when it could not handle 6 billion, without loads of people starving and lacking clean water and energy.  It’s not the number of people, [...]