It's Quite a Milestone -- Earth's 8 Billionth person!

Congratulations to you and everyone else are in order today! There are now officially 8 billion of us on the planet.

Sometime yesterday, researchers at the United Nations say the 8 billionth inhabitant of Earth was born.

There's no way to know exactly which baby put the population over this mark. But she or he was likely born in the Global South. The U.N. says much of world population growth between now and the year 2050 is coming from just eight countries – with half of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

Other countries in this group of eight are in Asia. India, with nearly 1.4 billion people, is forecast next year to overtake China as the world's most populous country, according to the U.N.

As for the milestone of the 8 billionth person, U.N. officials call it "a celebration of human longevity because of improvements in public health and medicine."

But it also comes with concerns about economic inequality and sustainability. Demographers say countries with the highest rates of birth tend to have the lowest income per capita. They also say that by slowing population growth, we could help reverse some of the environmental damage from human-influenced global warming.

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