So we aren't going to get a referendum on Europe but what David Cameron has got is about a third of his MPs giving him the finger (pardon my french). It will be interesting to see what he has got to say about that.
What we will get some time next week is a baby being born who will be, in a way, special. No star will rise above his/her place of birth, three wise men are unlikely to arrive with gifts for the new born child, the Pope isn't likely to make a big announcement about the second coming. So why is this child going to be special? He or she will bring the population of the planet up to 7 000 000 000. That's seven billion in case you can't work out what all the noughts mean. Because it is difficult to conceive exactly what a billion is this should give you an idea. Imagine a clock which ticks every second, in 11 days 13 hours and 18 minutes it will click a million times, your heart will beat a million times in about same amount of time. We can work that out in time because we can have a good guess at what we will be doing in 11 and a half days. But the clock keeps ticking for an other 31 years 251 days before it has ticked a billion times. That is a long time to sit next to the clock and count the ticks so take my word for it. It's a long time. 7 billion ticks will take 210 years by which time we have no idea what the population will be, that's if there is any human population left.
When I was born the population was just over 2 billion, so it's gone up by 350% in just under 70 years. That's an awfully big increase. Can the planet continue to support this seemingly ever increasing population explosion or will it all end badly?
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