“On Your Marks, Get Set, Go!” The Olympics and the Human Race.

As the Olympics grow bigger than ever, so too has humanity.  Are there no limits?

The almost 3,000 year history of the Olympics is a metaphor for human development. London’s Olympics run for nineteen days vs the five of the ancient Olympics in Greece.   Growth in productivity has enabled a phenomenal growth in human numbers allowing for a current, still expanding world population, of over 7 billion. This number, nearly 3 billion more than during the Montreal 1976 Olympics, is:

• Almost three times what it was when London last hosted the Olympics in 1948 and more than four times greater than during the first London Olympics in 1908;
•  Four times what it was at the start of the modern Olympics over a century ago;
•  28 times what it was when the ancient Olympics stopped in 393 AD;
•  98 times what it was when the ancient Olympics began in 776 BC.

Olympics athletes subscribe to the motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger). Humanity, too, is faster, higher, stronger.  Above all, we are more numerous, increasing at ¼ million ever day.  For a sustainable future, there have to be limits.

Check out the numbers: