I'm surprised it passed without much fanfare as the current world population surpasses 8 billion on November 15, 2022. The World-O-Meter website [^1] that keeps track of such things rolled over without my knowledge until my son Christopher sent a link. It is hard to imagine that many people are on the planet, and out of curiosity, I checked to see how many people were there when I joined the crowd. 2,925,686,680 souls were alive, and with some quick calculation, I determined I'm human number 2,925,686,678, having been born on the last day of the month. [^2]
The World-O-Meter website has taken the time to post everybody on a single page; unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), there are no pictures involved. It took some time to find, but here I am:
Hi! I’m people number 2,925,686,678
Another source of amusement regarding the number of people occurred when NASA posted a picture of planets from Mars and identified Earth. Seeing our tiny world from the surface of the red planet was humbling until somebody posted "group picture!" In the comments. It seems there is one in every family.
“Earth as seen from the surface of Mars” Downloaded from Pinterest “FunnyAsDuck”
Seriously, welcome, everyone. I wish you the best; however, I prefer not to see any of you while I'm hiking. Thanks.
Footnotes:
[^1]: [World Population Clock: 8 Billion People (LIVE, 2022) - Worldometer (worldometers.info)](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/)
[^2]: Calculations were rudimentary at best; however, if nobody else claims the number, it is mine forever.