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Population crisis looms, says expert He says family planning and dividing up resources can avert disaster if people and governments act now By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune As president of the Population Institute in Washington, D.C., Werner Fornos knows the statistics all too well. "Our world population is now growing at a rate of about four people being born every second," said Fornos, who is speaking in the Rogue Valley today during a tour of Oregon. "That's about 242 births per minute - 127 million births a year. "It took all of recorded history until 1830 for 1 billion people to be living on the planet," he continued. "That figure rose to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1975, 5 billion in 1986 and 6 billion in 1999." What's more, the mushrooming global population is expected to top 7 billion within a decade, he concluded. Given the institute's concern with the environmental and social ramifications of overpopulation, you'd think Fornos would be pessimistic about the future. Not so. After 20 years as head of the nonprofit institute, which has members in more than 170 countries working to educate people about the danger of overpopulation, Fornos, 68, sees reason for hope. "I'm very optimistic," he said. "I think the world population will stabilize at about 8 billion through voluntary means." Still, there is much to be done to avoid a global disaster, he said. "Failure to give priority attention to population growth may see us committing the ultimate blunder, one from which there is no recovery," he stressed. There are already 86 countries on the globe unable to feed their populations, he said. "When your readers go to bed tonight, there will be 800 million people around the world who are near starvation," he said. The overriding priority of the 21st century should be reducing the ballooning population while seeking a more equitable distribution of resources, he said. "This will mean we will have to change our prohibitive lifestyles - we are consuming too much of the available resources," he said of Americans. Founded by the Methodist Church in 1969, the institute promotes voluntary family planning, ensuring families only have the number of children they can love and nurture. "We're not talking about abortion," he stressed. "Abortion is a failure of society preventing unwanted pregnancies." Rather, the institute seeks to improve literacy, reduce infant mortality, increase male responsibility and provide universal access to family planning. "There are more than 350 million women in the world who say they want no more children, but many lack the education and means to do something about it," he said. Moreover, 80 percent of the world's policy-makers are men, he added. "So men have to get involved to make sure there is gender equality," he said. "That begins with responsible parenthood. Too many guys feel they were put on this earth to spread their seed." Overpopulation also creates a world ripe for terrorism, he said. "Poverty and social disintegration will spread, leading to terrorism stalking the world," he said. "You have to remember that 60 percent of those in the developing world are under 20 years old. Social dissolution and empty bellies will follow any tinhorn dictator. "Solving the problems of overpopulation will help us in the fight on terrorism," he added. "But we will need to get at the root cause." Statistics show that the United States, which now has an average 2.1 children per family, will have a population of some 600 million within 100 years, he said. Much of that growth will come from immigrants from Third-World countries seeking a better life, he noted. "If we can help stabilize societies in the poorest parts of the world, they will want to stay in their own country," he said. "That will help us and them in the long run." Before joining the institute, Fornos was an assistant professor at George Washington University, where he headed the university's Population Information Program. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.