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Good news. Women, women, women. Studies show a direct correlation between women's education and smaller family size. And now, for the first time since the beginning of our journey, early indicators are showing a curve to our meteoric rise. This graph from the U.N. plots three possible scenarios, with the middle one most likely -- a leveling off at about 9 billion humans. It's not known how to provide enough food, water, and energy for 9 billion people. 7 is already a great challenge.

Many are feeling hopeful about efficiency and recycling technologies. These are new advances that allow a person to have basic needs met, as well as things like hot showers, cold beers, and computers, all the while using a fraction of the energy and resources we currently do. It's already started. Even today at Home Depot one can buy a refrigerator that uses 80% less energy than in the 1970's and a lightbulb that uses 1/5 the power with the same amount of light. Agriculture and water are also key points of interests.

And all of this doesn't happen in a vacuum. Climate scientists warn of more droughts, precipitation events, and heat waves in our future that will combine with the needs of 9 billion people. It's an enormous challenge. But the long-term trends we see in women's education and advanced efficient technologies still leave me with hope.

Again, even faster -- information, energy use, land use, and baby making. Just 12 years this time to bring the population to six billion. This map of the internet tends to convey both the great potential of shared information and the unwieldiness of such a complex system. And just because information is shared in an electronic web, doesn't mean positive action is taken. 1999 is a full decade after the first testimonies were given by scientists to the U.S. Congress about the population's increasing use of fossil fuels, and the resulting global warming.

The balancing game continued as the rate of increase gained even more speed -- just 13 years to add yet another billion. In 1987 financial pressure, in the form of newly deregulated savings and loans running amok, and climate cycles in Africa creating cruel droughts, stressed the large populations from multiple angles. More food and fuel were needed around the world. In response, Brazil and other tropical regions looked to their rich rainforests for even more livestock grazing and cropland -- and they moved on them with fire, saws, and spectacular ferocity.

It doesn't matter that India got the bomb in 1974 and added to the growing threat of mass death. It doesn't matter that the pill became widely available in parts of the world. And it doesn't matter that women started to gain a power over their own destiny, including freedom from an obligatory family. --- We still exploded in numbers barely thought possible -- another billion souls in a mere 14 years.

1960. Just a short 30 years later!

People like to criticize Malthus (1766-1834) for his predictions of coming mass starvations, resulting from overpopulation and exceeding food resources. But we sometimes forget one of the most incredible things happened in the middle of the 20th century that danced us into a big end-run around truly massive problems: The Green Revolution. We don't mean the current use of the word "green", but rather a gigantic leap forward of new chemical, biological, and mechanical procedures, all at once, that catapulted crop yields and available arable land into a zone never before seen on Earth. It saved our bacon. But it also contributed to a mid century false sense of security and a naive unawareness of the knock-on effects from processed foods, chemical runoff in the water, biodiversity damage, and an imaginary permission slip to keep on exponentially growing. We forgot that we merely invented our way out of a population corner, with mixed results. But it did save millions and millions of lives.