Success of the human species

Jack Dikian

October 2011

Today marks the symbolic date for when Earths population will hit 7-billion. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011 this milestone, acknowledging also, that it's impossible to know the specific time or day.

In 1999, Kofi Annan, designated a boy born to refugee parents in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as Baby 6 Billion. He had been plucked from the hundreds of thousands of babies born that day to put a face on global population growth. That boy is now 12.

The next milestone, when the globe's population hits 8 billion — is estimated to be in around 14 years from now.