New American Every 14 Seconds Pushes Population to 308 Million

[jpak]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2009-12-29/new-american-every-14-seconds-pushes-population-to-308-million.html

An increase in births pushed the U.S. population up about 1 percent this year to a projected 308,400,408 as of Jan. 1, 2010, a jump of 2,606,181, the U.S. Census Bureau said today.

The population will probably grow by one person every 14 seconds next month, with one American being born every eight seconds and one dying every 12 seconds, said Alexa Kennedy- Puthoff, chief of the bureau’s population estimates branch.

The release comes about three months before the government conducts its decennial population survey, as mandated by the Constitution. Census data is used to distribute seats in Congress and allocate more than $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments, the bureau said in a statement. The Washington-based bureau will distributes census forms to households in March.

“The majority of the increase is due to natural increase - - new births in the United States -- and we also have new people coming in through international migration, just under 900,000” this year, said Kennedy-Puthoff.

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Damned Duggers...

:evilgrin:

[tabatha]

1. My heart goes out to kids being born this decade.

When they grow up, they will have huge challenges, especially of the environment.

[stuntcat]

2. exactly

It already breaks my heart every day watching what's happening to the animals and the seas and what's left of the wild places. And by the time my 2-year-old neighbor is my age he'll know his parents saw what was happening when they made him. But maybe he'll grow up to not care much for the natural stuff, I think that's the way humans are evolving. I mean look, the people who are most upset are the first ones to stop breeding.

I'm glad I'm 40 and I can NOT respect anyone who gives innocent people the rest of this century.

[Kablooie]

3. Ever get the feeling we have lived through the pinnacle of human culture and now it's all downhill?

[GliderGuider]

4. I always have that feeling. It's a great privilege to be alive right at this moment.

When I think that over 100 billion human beings who have lived on this planet are not alive at the peak moment of something so vast as modern industrial civilization I feel grateful and humbled that I have this opportunity.

Then I look at what our rise has done to the planet and what we have set up for our descendants and I feel profoundly ashamed.

But then I look at what is around me and inside me right now, and I know that all any of us, those hundred billion ancestors and all our countless descendants, ever had, have or will have is the moment we live in, and I am at peace.

[Nederland]

5. No

In terms of our understanding of reality and our ability to control our environment, the next 30 years will make the past one thousand look pathetic.

You are living at a time when human beings are on the verge of ultimate triumph, and you guys don't even see it coming. Sad.

[Kablooie]

6. Well, it's nice to hear an optimistic outlook.

I still think immediate self interest will trump any true corrections of our past mistakes.
It's only after an actual tragic disaster has occurred that people will all agree to do something.

[TxRider]

14. Nobody ever sees it coming

In the 1600's they never imagined the age of steam, people of the 1800's could never imagine the age of internal combustion or the age of flight. Nobody in the 1800's would have ever imagined our air transport system, interstate highways and 70mph cars.

Just as we cannot now imagine what reality will be in 50-100 years.

We are only just at the beginning of understanding our climate, in 100 years who knows where we will be, we may well control it to a large degree.

We're really just scratching the surface on clean renewable energy, who knows where it will be in 100 years, every city code could require photovoltaic roofing materials that is 4-5x as efficient as today's with a 30 year lifespan.

I choose to optimistic, after all the kids born today, inundated at every turn and immersed in indoctrination of the necessity of clean energy and sustainable living will have had their entire lifetimes, and that most of their children's lifetimes to make new solutions by 100 years from now.

They will likely look back on the "good old days" just like every generation.

[TxRider]

8. That sentiment seems to be echoed by every generation

At least it has been said by all the 5 generations I have witnessed.

[Nederland]

10. Exactly

I wonder what it is that make every generation hold the conceit that it represents the pinnacle of human achievement?

[wuvuj]

12. And I wonder why humans never seem to learn....

...

[Nederland]

17. Yeah, humans never learn

I mean, just look at how much people 300 years ago knew about the world compared to today and it's obvious we haven't learned a thing... :eyes:

[amborin]

11. agree; but when humans are gone from this planet, wonderful living species will thrive again

[TxRider]

13. And go extinct again

And so it goes, with species evolving and extincting until the sun expands and fries the planet and it's all gone forever.

Unless we can figure out how to get to another planet and bring it with us, every form of life here is doomed in the end.

[stuntcat]

15. one species..

yes.
One species expanded exponentially in less than a century.. destroying so many big beautiful natural places & causing so many extinctions & killing huge parts of the sea & creating a glob of trash in the ocean the size of a small continent.

Yet here in the E/E room that's defended as natural by so many DU members.. in this very discussion it's repeated how natural it is what's happening. Oh yes, the natural world has definitely dealt well with our creation of combustion engines and burning of billions of tons of fossil fuel :banghead:


I come to the E/E room hoping to find some sanity and all it's doing is making me lose hope.

[amborin]

16. +10000

[TxRider]

18. We are a product of nature

We are an expression of nature, an expression of the natural world that spawned us.

We and all we do are inseparable from nature.

If we came here from another planet we would not be a natural expression of the forces of nature on this planet, but we are not aliens.

That said, we are also an expression of nature that has ability to rationally predict long term outcomes of our behavior as well as choose the direction of our species.

Just like every other species, if we overpopulate, over specialize and overrun the resources that support us, we will pay a price. The only difference is we have the ability to foresee this and choose a different course.

[stuntcat]

19. we also have the ability now to erase forever many other species

Hopefully humans' urge to help themselves will result in some other species being saved.

[TxRider]

7. I wonder how many

Are born to illegal immigrants?

http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-04-15/news/17191894_1_illegal-immigrants-immigrants-ages-us-citizen-children

[vinylsolution]

9. Far too many....

... and Michelle Malkin was one of them.