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We've just had a fortnight of the usual doom, gloom and outright hysteria as the world's media collectively lamented the growth of the number of humans living on the planet. All the customary nonsense that has been churned out for the past 50 years was repeated. We're going to run out of water; food shortages will cause unprecedented war, murder and looting; all these pesky people (excepting journalists and population experts of course) are ruining the planet, and their numbers need to be seriously curtailed before the sky falls on our heads.

All of these scary pronouncements are usually accompanied by photographs of children and families in either Asia or sub-Saharan Africa - a juxtaposition which would rightly be criticised for its distinct whiff of racism in any other circumstances. And when the United Nations named a newborn girl from the Philippines, Danica May Camacho, as the seven billionth person on the planet, no-one questioned why they chose the developing world rather than, say, Notting Hill in London, as their entirely arbitrary spot on which this supposed calamity befell the earth.

Read more of Niamh Uí Bhriain's blog here at the Life Institute