As we sailed into the new millennium, humans crossed a threshold never before witnessed in our species. We flew past the 6 billion mark in number. This is an impressive figure, but not one that we can easily appreciate, unless we are Bill Gates or ExxonMobil. Let's try to understand how incredibly large this number is. Consider that this article has ~9000 letters. Thus, it would take more than 650,000 copies of it to produce enough letters to …showed first 75 words of 1730 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1730 total…rather than chanting that overpopulation is such a terrible problem so much, we should ask what economic, political, and social forces exist worldwide that encourage people to have children that are almost guaranteed to suffer throughout their lives and, more illuminating, why must children born today suffer-when food is available, immunizations are available, and technology seems so advanced. It is time to take a refreshed, rejuvenated, and more fully informed look at the "population" problem.