Doubleplusgood Article
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The birth of babies is the most important factor contributing to the increase of populations around the world. The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Black Death around the year 1400; the highest rates of growth—increases above 1.8% per year—were seen briefly during the 1950s, then for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s. Annual births have reduced to 140 million since their peak at 173 million in the late 1990s, and are expected to remain constant, while deaths number 57 million per year and are expected to increase to 90 million per year by 2050. Current projections show a steady decline in the population growth rate, with the population expected to reach between 8 and 10.5 billion between the year 2040 and 2050.
The rapid increase in human population over the course of the 20th century raises concern about whether Earth is experiencing overpopulation. The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources are linked to threats to the ecosystem, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
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*... that there are at least three other businesses like show business?
- ... that the dolphin is the only animal other than man that laughs at its own farts?
- ... that there are at least three other businesses like show business?
- ... that the dolphin is the only animal other than man that laughs at its own farts?
- ... that there are at least three other businesses like show business?
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In the news
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On this day...
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September 13: Secondary Bastille Day (France), Dress as a French Maid Day, New Jewish Year
- Some 5768 years ago - God creates Jews as the world's first practical joke then sets them on fire and distinguishes them via urination.
- 1753 - Mme Bastille opens an eponymously named cake shop in Paris. Rioting ensues.
- 1768 - The first signs of a confusion which will shape a nation come when the Postman accidentally delivers 12 gallons of milk and eight pounds of flour to the Bastille prison and 7 condemned enemies of the state to Mme Bastille. According to historical records she made them a cup of tea and then undertake forced labour icing cakes for Louis XVI.
- 1787 - Mme Bastille nearly goes bankrupt having wrongly anticipating a surge in demand due to the peasants actually going out and eating cake. She sacks Marie Antoinette as a strategy consultant.
- 1789 - French revolutionaries storm the other Bastille. You know, the other one. It's just up the street from the first one, the one that we stormed already. No, not the tobacconist, next to that. Do I have to draw you a map?
- 1789.2 - Wedding cake figurines cause confusion in the dark among overexcited revolutionaries and the battle to take the Bastille cake shop rages for 3 days as a result.
- 1811 - Napoleon makes Secondary Bastille Day a pubic holiday throughout French occupied Europe. The British respond with well-bred disdain.
- 1815 - A somewhat confused British man dies from keeping a stiff lower lip.
- 1842 - American pro basketballer Shaquille O'Neal is born
- 1889 - The centenary of Secondary Bastille Day is marred when the organising committee grudgingly admits they don't know where the Secondary Bastille is, and are not even sure if there ever was a Secondary Bastille.
- 1910 - The grinch steals christmas from a clan of pot smoking little people
- 1940 - A platoon of German soldiers is sent to occupy the Secondary Bastille. They are discovered ragged, starving and lost in 1952.
- 1994 - President Bill Clinton initiates Dress Like a French Maid Day.
- 1997 - Tupac Shakur dies six days after being shot in Las Vegas. Witnesses described the assailant as being dressed like a French maid.
- 1999 - Lunar Bastille blown out of orbit by massive explosion at waste storage complex overloaded with cake, camembert cheese rinds, croissants, and taunted english kanigguts.
- 2000 - Al Qaeda decides that "9/11" is catchier than "9/13." Plans are postponed almost a full year.
- 2001 - To honor the victims of 9/11, Dick Cheney dresses like a French maid.
- 2009 - Kanye West is sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. OF ALL TIME, DOG.
- 2010 - Taylor Swift wins at the VMA's again, except this time when Kanye West tries to bring his drunken ass up, she punches him in the nose, where he then falls on Beyoncé, who is so surprised, she screams, which alerts her bodyguards, who then tackle Kanye West and beat the crap out of him. That night he succumbs to his injuries, and Taylor Swift goes back up to the microphone. "I'm sorry, y'all, but Michael Jackson had one of the best deaths of all time! Of all time!"
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