Thinking Back to the 1999 Head Count

Think back to what you were doing in the fall of 1999 (besides getting ready for the millenium disaster...). At that time, Earth hit the 6,000,000,000 mark: Net population. The zeros of this number were scribbled out on thousands of chalkboards that day.  


We are headed for the finish line of an additional billion people in 2011; a mere 12 years to add a billion. The PopClock I just checked is running at 2+ more souls per second. Approximate total population through today:

6,798,906,115

Unless you are into demography, there is no reason to keep tabs on this number on a regular basis. The continual increase, though, is something to keep in the back of the mind, along with "finiteness."