This planet just hit 7 billion people. I know this is not a blog about politics, economics, and social trends. However, for a former triple major in International Relations, History, and Political Science and a masters in education I just have to add my two cents. If you add it up with all my other two cents from this blog you now have your first dollar online.

Anyways, to the point. I have always been interested in this discussion, because in the next 50 years population size will determine every conversation on this planet. Environment-well it does not look sustainable for 7, 8, 9, and 10 billion people over the long haul. Poverty-with less resources poverty could soar. There are a number of things that arise from this. Famine-people dying from no food or lack of quality food. War-ever seen two pre-schoolers fight over one teddy bear. Picture that worldwide in 20-30 years.

I think you get my point. So, here are a few of my solutions to these challenges. Some may be unorthodox, and some blend seamlessly with what is happening right now in the world.

1. If this planet can not support our population then we need to find other planets that can do this. Obviously this is a lot harder than it sounds. We can not snap our fingers and suddenly end up in Orion’s belt. However, just as we set out to send a man to the moon in the sixties we must send human colonies out to the moon and to Mars in the next 15 years.

The technology is getting closer and closer to actually becoming a reality. Plus, we have in a weird way all of our eggs in one basket. Humans are all stuck on this one planet when the universe is so wide and vast that if we set out now to reach the end of it(if there is an end) it would take billions and billions of years.

Second, we must discuss birth control. It just does not make sense any more to have more than two children in most parts of the world. As a former teacher I am pro-child, but also know that the more children that are out there in the planet at this point the more we risk overrunning all of our resources and hurting out future.

That is why personally I would never have more than two children. Actually one of the things that attracted me to my wife when we started to get serious was that we had similar views on a lot of topics, such as children. We both said one and done. In recent years we have discussed the possibility of adopting a second child, but that would be all.It just does not feel right to have more children than there are parents.

Sorry if this is not the light-hearted approach towards social media that I usually take, but I feel that the population of this world needs to be systematically reduced over the generations. The only way to do that is to start today. In the meantime, I would like to welcome with open arms the 7th billion human on this planet.