THE world population is increasing at such a rate that within decades personal space may be but a dim and distant memory.

Back in 1950 there were 2.5 billion souls in the world. There are now more than seven billion and the total is rising at an alarming rate.

A US Census Bureau website gives the rising tally as it happens. When I looked, there were 7,032,318,205. When I looked again, it had gone up by 12 births at the rate of one a second.

By heck, I thought, but that's a lot of people, and the UN predicts it will rise to nine billion by 2050.

How long before we run out of room?

We're doomed, Fraser might say.

But don't panic, Mr Mainwaring.

I am convinced the world can save itself.

The reason for my confidence is the Great Exhibition of 1851 that was held to display the “works of industry of all nations”, although really it was to show British superiority to the world. After all, it had been our industrial revolution, hadn't it? And we had an empire upon which the sun never set.

More than a million visitors went to the Crystal Palace to be amazed by such inventions as De La Rue's Patent Envelope Machine, a sportsman's knife from Sheffield with 80 blades, and an expanding hearse.

Queen Victoria was ecstatic. Charlotte Bronte went twice.

How they must have stared in awe at the alarm bed that tipped its occupant out at a pre-set time, the stiletto defensive umbrella, the folding piano for yachtsmen, and the pulpit designed with rubber tubes leading to the pews of the deaf so they had a better chance of hearing the sermon. Whether they wanted to or not.

Every need was catered for: plumber George Jennings installed the first public flushing toilets so that visitors could experience relief. No less than 827,280 spent a penny.

Faced with such richness of creation, other nations faltered in their submissions to the exhibition. Chile sent a single lump of gold that weighed 50 kilogrammes. Not clever, admittedly, but it made a statement.

The minds of Victorian scientists were exploding with ideas and possibilities, and while some may now seem foolish, others paved the way into the 20th century: the telephone, electric telegraph, steam power, motor cars, photography, electric light, concrete, flight, petrol, steel, moving pictures, x-rays and advancements in medicine.

Those men of science may, at the time, have thought they were at the apotheosis of discovery. The truth was they were laying the stepping stones of advancement, as had their predecessors throughout history, along which others could take further strides.

Today, as well as a population bursting at the seams, we face global warming and climate change.

But when we, as a nation, can turn a stadium from green and pleasant land to industrial revolution to athletics arena in a few hours in that amazing opening Olympic ceremony, no problem seems beyond man's wit and ingenuity.

We have sent rockets into space, explored the ocean floors. We have transplanted hearts, created a world wide web of information. We have put men on the moon – and who, apart from Jules Verne and H G Wells could have imagined that 100 years ago.

And only last week, we landed a 4x4 motor vehicle on Mars.

In the future, answers will be found because they always are. When the chips are down, the mind becomes wonderfully focussed. Science fiction will become fact. Perhaps colonies will be built on the moon or the sea bed. Deserts turned into arable pastures. Birth controlled by education rather than compulsion. Alternative energies found. I have every confidence in the ingenuity of man.

If we can make an expanding hearse, we can surely save the planet.