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On October 31, 2011, the United Nations held an unaccountably cheery media event at its New York headquarters, to mark the occasion of the world’s population passing seven billion. It was a statistically questionable exercise, for it acknowledged that no one could be sure of the planet’s exact population on any given day. The UN called it “symbolic”. The question is why, if they were going to celebrate any major demographic development with such faux-certainty, did the powers that be at the UN not make it the really important one, the one which gives some hope for this overcrowded planet.