The world's population is likely to top 7 billion by next year. How should we respond? Depending where you are in the world, it probably means you should have more babies.

Conventional wisdom may suggest that in order to save the planet we should all stop having kids. Indeed, according to the Population Reference Bureau, 267 people are born and 108 die every minute. Troublesome as that statistic might appear -- consumption of resources, carbon emission, etc. -- the information reflects two opposing trends that each carry their own set of challenges.

Birth rates in developing nations are adding 80 million to the population annually. Meanwhile, births are on the decline in developed nations, leaving a smaller number of workers to finance benefits for a growing elderly population.

According to the Economic Times:

Other fun stats: In Japan by 2050, there will be just one working-age adult to support each elderly person. Conversely, the population of Africa will double in that time to two billion. By then, India will have overtaken a stabilized China as the world's most populous country, with 1.75 billion people. Also, finally something for Britain to cheer about: By the middle of the century it will surpass Germany and France to become the largest country in Europe.

And is overpopulation in the developing world as big a problem as it's assumed to be? Environmental writer Fred Pearce drew some attention earlier this year for a book, "The Coming Population Crash," that suggested our worries about overpopulation and its effect on the environment are misplaced. Most of the world's population growth, he argues, are in countries whose carbon footprint, per capita, is tiny. It takes 250 Ethiopians, for example, to match the carbon output of one American.

Factors such as immigration and varying infant mortality rates further obscure whatever lesson there is to absorb here. But as the PRB data shows, birth rates in developing countries have been cut by more than half since 1950 (Pearce attributes this to better education and contraception).

So where does that leave us? To deal with the continued aging of our population, should wealthier nations get back to the baby-makin'?