Population expert speaking at university next week

Unchecked, the world's growing population will only add to poverty, climate change, hunger and environmental problems, population expert Werner Fornos says.

Fornos, president of the Population Institute of Washington, D.C., advocates family planning efforts to put the brakes on population growth.

The world population currently stands at about 6.5 billion and is estimated it could exceed 9 billion by 2050.

Fornos will visit Cape Girardeau on Monday to lecture at Southeast Missouri State University on population issues. The free lecture is scheduled for noon in Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium.

Dr. Alan Journet, biology professor at Southeast, helped schedule Fornos' visit.

Journet said world population issues and scarcity of resources can't be ignored.

"We only have to think about what would happen if everybody on the planet consumed oil resources at the rates we do in the United States," he said. "Imagine the global conflicts. We would have a war with everybody."

Founded in 1969, the not-for-profit Population Institute focuses on reducing excessive population growth. Its immediate goal is to make population stabilization a priority of both U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

For much of history, the world population was relatively small.

It took until 1830 for the world's population to reach 1 billion. By 1930, the planet's population had reached 2 billion. By 1987, it had climbed to 5 billion.

Today the world's population is growing by more than 78 million people each year. Ninety-seven percent of that growth is occurring in the poorest countries, according to the Population Institute.

"The key to the world's demographic future will be the reproductive behavior of the 3 billion young people -- equal to the entire world population as recently as 1960 -- who will enter their childbearing years within the next generation," Fornos said.

Fornos will also speak at colleges in Springfield, St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia next week.