Earth cannot support six billion people The United Nations Population Division estimates that the human population will reach six billion on October 12, 2000. For those of us born roughly a quarter of a century ago, that colossal number is two billion more than the four billion that inhabited the Earth when we entered it. Furthermore, it represents a doubling of the population in less than forty years. Most of us, however, have little basis for such staggering figures. Most of us literally cannot conceptualize numbers of this magnitude, when it is a struggle in itself to keep track of the number of digits. Most of us in everyday life do not need to conceive such a large amount of anything. Yet there are good reasons to try to do so. Meteorologists have warned us that pollution related to the enormous and growing use of resources by the immense and growing human population will lead to a greater frequency of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes, as well as an increase in global temperatures; the last decade would seem to support this hypothesis. Biologists have darkly predicted that many of Earth's species will be exterminated within the next century, as a direct result of human domination of the landscape. Social scientists are well aware of the alleged causal link between overcrowding and social conflict, violence and war, and there is already no shortage of these three evils. Even now, humans have severely impacted most of Earth's ecosystems and use more than half of accessible freshwater for consumption. It is a fundamental truth that on a planet with limited resources, unbridled growth is an impossible practice to sustain; all signals would be... half of the card... amount once every two days? By eating dairy, legumes and grain products for protein we can significantly reduce our intake of harmful saturated fats and cholesterol – overall we are likely to benefit from such a change. But the simplest solution would be to limit waste. It seems so simple, yet in Princeton dining halls it is not uncommon to see a student throw away plates of food. We can do better. As Meadows et al. they proclaim in “Beyond the Limits,” the state of the world is not a prediction of doom, but a challenge. It is a challenge to navigate this world into the next century without social collapse. I would like to add that the current situation also represents an opportunity: a chance to make our lives more meaningful by giving up certain indulgences and leading rich lives in pursuit of higher and more ethical goals..