Regardless of whether you believe in climate change or not, everyone needs to understand the incredible impending crisis of human demand. Energy, water, food, and infrastructure are increasingly precious commodities that are being supplied at a frantic pace by companies and governments all over the globe. However, the planet that sustains both this frantic growth and the commodities that are in such high demand is not an infinite resource; a renewable one, perhaps, but at the pace our species is growing and consuming. The growth is largely due to a dramatic decrease in morality rates from stabilized global powers and increases in medical knowledge and technology. Some of our species growth has been offset by falling fertility rates (which lags somewhat behind falling mortality rates) in developed countries, but not enough to counteract fertility rates in developing countries where  growth is very high. That growth is reaching a new landmark next month, according to a new report released in Science Magazine, that shows the global population reaching seven billion people by October 31st.

Every model that shows this kind of progression reveals a rate of growth on this planet is accelerating. Humanity did not reach its first billion from the dawn of human history until 1880. However, it only took from 1880 to 1999, 119 years, to reach six billion. Furthermore, it only took another 11 years add a billion people to our planet's surface. The next billion is expected be added in another 13 years. Humanity, it seems, has reached a landmark in its evolution in which biology, technology, and sociology have all reached a kind of critical mass that has resulted in massive populations across the globe, and it isn't stopping any time soon.

The real tragedy in this data is that the bulk of our global population growth is taking place in those developed countries where fertility rates remain high. The UN Population Division tells Singularity Hub, "the bulk of humanity is becoming 'less developed'," a consequence of the extreme population booms in those countries. In 1950, 68% of the world's population resided in less developed, or developing nations. Today that percentage is closer to 82%, and by 2050 will account of 86% of the total global population. The real tragedy here is that while women in developed nations are having more children (the definition of this study's "fertility" rates), those nations are also most significantly impacted by environmental disruptions, wars, famine, and extreme poverty. Essentially, the governments most effected by our population boom are often the ones least capable of adequately addressing it. Nigeria, the fastest growing country, has a fertility rate of 9.1, or the average number of children a woman will bear in her lifetime. Among African nations, it is of middling economic health, but 45% of its population remains in poverty and the per capita income is around $2,500; not the kind of nation that could easily absorb a population that is expected to more than double its population in just 40 years.

China has historically had the largest populations, but will be passed by India in the next several decades, increasing its total population by over half a billion people by 2050. With India and China's growing economies and expanding trade markets, many in these demographic mega-nations are going to be looking for greater public and personal wealth; the same standard of wealth and quality of life that Americans have. This will require astronomically more energy, and providing that energy will be one of the greatest challenges that our generation will face going forward.

To think that simply "cleaning" up our methods of fossil fuels extraction, or giving more government money to oil and gas companies, is going to place the United States in a competitive position with these emerging economies is irresponsible. To think that energy independence can just mean drilling more oil from our domestic sites, is short-sighted. To think that renewable energy is not economically viable is to ignore the reality of our situation. Already China has cornered the solar energy market in a way that will make it very hard for the U.S. to break into it, once we've pulled our heads out of the political morass long enough to notice we've fallen behind. Likewise, wind energy has become the province of China, India, and Spain...where we buy most of the components for our own wind farms. Renewable energy is not just a "green" technology, it's an absolute necessity to produce the volume of energy that will be in demand in the coming decades. For the U.S. to allow itself to fall behind these emerging industries is virtually assuring our national obsolescence to the generations that follow.