n overdrive, adding a billion every 13 or 14 years. We passed the 6 billion mark late in 1999.
             Rates of population growth are also significant. Together with the growth in consumption levels, these affect our ability to adapt our technology and institutions to environmental challenges. The faster the growth rates of population and consumption, the faster we must be able to adapt if we are to prevent an increase in environmental damage - and the more likely it is that we will not adapt quickly enough.
             Human population has grown in a flattened S-shaped curve, rising very slowly at first, then gradually building up speed and entering a sharp upward hike. Although we are still on the riser of that steep slope, the growth rate has slowed considerably and the curve will begin to level out in the next few decades.
             Put simply, the human population spurt came about because death rates fell faster than birth rates. Antibiotics, immunization, clean water and improved food availability produced instant improvements in infant and child mortality. Reproductive habit
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