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In a country with so much space, where most of us only feel crowded when we ride an elevator, it's hard to imagine we have 7 billion people living on our planet.

But in India, they're dealing with the full brunt of that reality. There are 51 babies born in India every minute -- about the time it will take you to read this blog post.

That's the kind of statistic that makes Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, lose sleep. He monitors how the planet's huge population drains its resources. With so many people, how can we all have access to enough food and water, let alone medicine?

"We're in a difficult situation," he told Janis Mackey Frayer. "It's not impossible yet, but with each passing month and each addition of 219,000 people a day, the Earth's resources are under pressure."

Yes, that's right: He said 219,000 people are born each day. That's nearly the entire population of Saskatoon.

India is the canary in the coal mine. Its birthrate is so high, India's population is expected to surpass China's in 14 years. And the problems that India faces in educating and feeding its people are something that many more countries -- especially developing nations -- are increasingly facing.

"Another 2 billion people may be added to the world population by mid-century, many of them in places where hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation are already taking a high toll," Brown wrote on the Earth Policy Institute's website.

On Twitter, some people greeted the 7 billion landmark with a bit of humour:

• @dominos: We serve 8 million slices a day. If we start now we could deliver a slice to all 7 billion people on earth in about 2.5 years.

Others were cynical:

• @anca1268: A letter to baby 7 billion: 'Dear kid, welcome to our mess' gu.com/p/332mj/tw via @guardian

But despite the doom and gloom, there has been a bizarre worldwide fight over which exact baby was the 7 billionth born -- no matter that it's impossible to prove.

In Russia, at least three mothers claim their child is the lucky one.

• "He was born on this day, and that is a great honor," said Yelena Nikolayeva, as she held up a certificate for photographers naming her son as the world's 7 billionth resident. "I do not know what opportunities it will give our child." -- The Moscow Times

Tonight, we'll show you video of some of the babies vying for the title.

With so many people now living on Earth, where do you fit in? The United Nations Population Fund has created a website where you can see how many of your fellow Canadians were born on your birthday, their life expectancy, and how many people lived at the time in urban areas versus rural areas.

You'll see that even in Canada, our population is rising.

Check out the website here. But be careful: it's a humbling experience.

The site also emphasizes that while Canada may have a lot of empty space with plenty of resources, we're all inhabitants of one planet. The problems that India faces are ultimately ours, too.

To drive that point home, UNFPA enlisted musicians from around the world to create a song about unity. We're all in this together.