2017 Life Logs, Days 165: 1 of 108 Billion People
Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Weather: Temp in the 70’s F, Partly Sunny
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA
My day was spent sitting at the dining table on the computer entering family data into Ancestry.com. And as I entered some very interesting people, my sense of history demanded that I Google these folks to assure that my data is correct. I spent my time between 1500 and 500 AD. And then I got curious about just how many people have lived on this earth of ours. Today there are 7.5 billion people on earth, but how many people in total have lived on earth?
The numbers showing the growth rate of humans are very imprecise, but they give you an idea of how we have grown. Some charts start with 2 people in 50,000 BC, grow to 5 million in 8,000 BC, and up to 300 million people who had lived on earth by 1 AD. The growth rate was very slow, but as the number of people increased, so did the growth rate. We broke the 1 billion mark in the 1800’s and some experts state that there are now about 108 billion people who have lived on our planet. So you and I are one of 108 billion very lucky people who have inhabited planet earth, give or take a few million for a margin of error! I don’t know how many generations I went back in my family today, but it wasn’t 500 since there have only been that many generations since the dawn of civilization. It only felt like 500 after hours of entering data. As I cut and paste together generations, it looked like this lining the hallway.
I got my only break today when I headed out to see Sam’s fourth grade band concert.
His instrument is the trumpet and he played a duet tonight. He looked so handsome and grown-up and he made it through the duet without any ‘bloopers’. So I call that a very successful evening.
Next week he has fourth grade graduation as all Falmouth fourth graders go to a different school for fifth grade. Just yesterday Mark and I flew home from New Zealand for his birth. Where have these years gone?
