World Population Day: Will 7 billion people create a crisis?

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—World population will reach 7 billion this year, prompting new concerns about whether the world will soon face a major population crisis. "In spite of 50 years of the fastest population growth on record, the world has done remarkably well in producing enough food and reducing poverty," said University of Michigan economist David Lam. Lam is a professor of economics and a research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research. He delivered the presidential address, titled "How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons from 50 Years of Exceptional Demographic History," at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America earlier this year. In 1968, when Paul Ehrlich's book, "The Population Bomb," triggered alarm about the impact of a rapidly growing world population, growth rates were about 2 percent and world population doubled in the 39 years between 1960 and 1999. According to Lam, that is something that never happened before and will never happen again. "There is virtually no question that world population growth rates will continue to decline," said Lam.