We crossed the one billion mark in the early 19th ce­ntury. We took a ce­ntury and a qu­arter to become two billion, and only 30 years to add another one billion. The symbolic seven billionth citizen of the world is just born in India. By 2045, the world is projected to reach nine billion. Are these numbers intimidating? Yes and No.

On the one hand, our natural resources are depleting. Billions are undernourished and still going hungry. On the other, people are living longer: Better nutrition and sanitation has im­proved life ex­pectancy, fewer children are dying, and fertility rates are going down.

India is now 1.2 billion people. By 2050 it will be 1.6 billion people. The numbers are frightening no doubt, but no one would want a catastrophe to happen to change the scenario. What is then the solution?

According to one estimate, if high quality sterilisation programmes are adopted, India could have 1.4 billion people in 2050 instead of 1.6 billion. Of course, pressure of any kind or cash incentive is not the desirable option.

The “coercive one-child policy” is also not a good idea. We should also recognise that “Don’t stop until you have a son” is bad practice. By 2050, the total number could reach 10 billion, or it could stop at eight billion. Thus writes Robert Kunzig, “The eventual tally will depend on the choices individual couples make when they engage in that most intimate of human acts.”

Coitus interruption is certainly one of the ways to achieve fertility decline. In the early 20th century in Asia, women bore on an average six children. As per the UN projections, the world will reach replacement fertility by 2030.

The national average in India is now 2.6 children per woman. The state where fertility rate is lowest (1.7) — Kerala — has a high female literacy rate (around 90 per cent). Thanks to the emphasis parents are placing on their children, Indian children on an average are much better educated than their parents.

Some believe food shortages could cause a collapse of global civilisation. The way to salvage the situation, they say is in climate stabilisation and repairing the ecological damage. They believe “if we don’t hold the world’s population to eight billion by reducing fertility, the death rate may increase instead”.

Population biologist Joel Cohen asks “How many people can the earth support?” Cohen doesn’t give specific answer, but says that all children should be nourished well enough to learn in school and are educated well enough to solve the problems they will face as adults.

“Life was better in the past” is “rose-tinted nostalgia”, argues Matt Ridley in his book The rational optimist. Things are happening to make a better world. As pointed out by Kunzig, to accommodate nine billion people (as is projected for 2045), the world population density needed will be a little more than half that of France today. This figure seems manageable. Inc­reasing population is not the only problem, and shouldn’t be blamed for all our problems.

Quality people do matter. Our future will depend upon the choices we make, and the ideas we generate. We need better quality people. We need “mating minds”. Higher the qualities, less frightening quantities become.

We are seven billion people with seven billion possibilities, says a 2011 UN Population Fund report. And as Mahatma Gandhi said, “There is enough on this earth to meet every man’s need, but not enough to meet one man’s greed.”zz

The writer is a biotechnologist and ED,Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Jaipur