Lessons from the Silver Surfer

This comic is both shocking and illuminating. 

For those who don’t know, this is the Silver Surfer, an emissary of Galactus, the destroyer of worlds, part of the Marvel universe of comic book characters. 

Here, we see the Silver Surfer say he will not participate in the destruction of Earth and its 3 billion people. 

But the world has 7.6 billion people. 

What’s going on? 

Simple: This comic is from 1966. 

• It took 2 million years for human population to hit 1 billion in 1830.
   
• It took only 100 years to add the next billion in 1930. 
  
  
• Earth’s population topped 3 billion in 1960, just 30 years later. 
  
  
• Global population topped 4 billion just 15 years later, in 1975. 
  
  
• World population topped 5 billion in 1987. 
  
  
• Earth’s population topped 6 billion by 1999. 
  
  
• Global population topped 7 billion in 2011, and is projected to top 8 billion in 2024. 

The world does not need to be destroyed by Galactus — human greed, sloth, ignorance, and fecundity will do that on its own.