World Population

Nearly two-thirds of American voters believe that human population growth is driving other animal species to extinction and that if the situation gets worse, society has a "moral responsibility to address the problem," according to new national public opinion poll. A slightly lower percentage of those polled - 59% - believes that population growth is an important environmental issue and 54% believe that stabilizing the population will help protect the environment. The survey was conducted on behalf of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which unlike other environmental groups has targeted population growth as part of its campaign to save wildlife species from extinction.

Nearly two-thirds of American voters believe that human population growth is driving other animal species to extinction and that if the situation gets worse, society has a "moral responsibility to address the problem," according to new national public opinion poll. A slightly lower percentage of those polled - 59% - believes that population growth is an important environmental issue and 54% believe that stabilizing the population will help protect the environment. The survey was conducted on behalf of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which unlike other environmental groups has targeted population growth as part of its campaign to save wildlife species from extinction.

Re "Bending the population curve," Opinion, Dec. 2 The world doesn't want to consider abortion as a method of family planning, but women worldwide do to the tune of about 40 million a year. Half of these are illegal and unsafe, resulting in millions of injuries and deaths, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Universal access to contraception would certainly reduce population pressures, but thanks to gender inequality and religion, women often don't have safe access to abortion and contraception.

Re "Bending the population curve," Opinion, Dec. 2 The world doesn't want to consider abortion as a method of family planning, but women worldwide do to the tune of about 40 million a year. Half of these are illegal and unsafe, resulting in millions of injuries and deaths, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Universal access to contraception would certainly reduce population pressures, but thanks to gender inequality and religion, women often don't have safe access to abortion and contraception.

Melvin D. Thomas' concept of reducing the world population from the current 5 billion to 50 million to improve the environment of those remaining provides interesting food for thought (letter, May 4). One problem. It may be difficult to get volunteers to be among the 4.95 billion souls "reduced" in order to arrive at this condition of heaven upon Earth. JERRY SULLIVAN Los Angeles

It took only a dozen years for humanity to add another billion people to the planet, reaching the milestone of 7 billion Monday — give or take a few months. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011, as the "symbolic" date for hitting 7 billion, while acknowledging that it's impossible to know for sure the specific time or day. Using slightly different calculations, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 7-billion threshold will not be reached until March.

The world population is expected to grow from 6 billion to about 10 billion by 2080, but the human race is still expected to have enough to eat, an Australian demographer said in Beijing. "But there may be more subtle things about the environment, about the atmosphere that would be much more difficult to control," said John Caldwell, president of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.

The League of Women Voters is hosting a question-and-answer discussion of the world population Saturday at Marie Callender's Restaurant. Susie Morale, who is a member of the Population Coalition, the Environmental Action Committee and the Peace Corps Assn., will speak about issues ranging from human rights to orphaned children. "We will be discussing the problems of food supply and sustaining the systems it takes to make population viable," said Dorothy Baird, who helped organize the event.

World population is growing more slowly than in recent years and with a concerted effort to defuse a "demographic time bomb" population could stabilize at 8 billion by 2025, an advocacy group said Friday. Werner Fornos, president of the Washington-based institute, said the world's population is growing by almost 90 million annually, more slowly than the 100 million growth of recent years. The world's population is nearing 5.9 billion, and will be over 6 billion by the year 2000.

The rate at which people are being born is speeding up again, just as the planet's population edges past the 5-billion milestone, a population study group reported Monday. The private Population Reference Bureau cited an easing of strict birth limits in China as a prime reason for the turnaround in population growth. The Bureau's new World Population Data Sheet for 1987 estimates that the July 1 population of the world will be 5.026 billion.

Re "A church's choice," last of five parts, July 29 The horror created by Roman Catholic clerics in the Philippines begs for a new reformation by more thoughtful followers of the faith. The bishops pretend to promote a "culture of life" by pressuring politicians to halt the distribution of contraceptives; in fact, they promote a culture of death with more starving children. Wrongly conflating contraception with abortion leads to more actual abortions. Human beings might be able to adapt to the global changes taking place; however, they could starve the planet's life if the science that offers a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies is ignored.

DADAAB, Kenya - His rib cage rose and fell with tight, rapid breaths. Saad Siyat looked shrunken beneath the hospital blanket. His wide-set eyes rolled up into his head, and his body burned with fever. The boy was unconscious and convulsing when his aunt brought him to the hospital at Ifo camp, one of five massive camps in eastern Kenya filled with Somali refugees. The family had arrived months earlier after a nearly 300-mile journey across the desert. Saad was suffering from pneumonia and chronic undernourishment - in particular, a protein deficiency known as kwashiorkor.

If life were a movie, the president of the United States (probably played by Will Smith) would be leaping into action to save humankind from the calamity that a new scientific report says is about to befall the Earth.  A paper prepared by 22 international scientists and just published in the journal Nature warns that overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change have pushed the world toward a tipping point beyond which lie irreversible,...

It took only a dozen years for humanity to add another billion people to the planet, reaching the milestone of 7 billion Monday — give or take a few months. Demographers at the United Nations Population Division set Oct. 31, 2011, as the "symbolic" date for hitting 7 billion, while acknowledging that it's impossible to know for sure the specific time or day. Using slightly different calculations, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 7-billion threshold will not be reached until March.

The United Nations has identified Monday as the day world population hits 7 billion. Many find the Halloween date appropriate given the frightening prospect of this demographic milestone. As if 7 billion weren't scary enough, the U.N. projects 10 billion people by 2083, the addition of roughly three more Indias. But the parents of the 7-billionth person should not be afraid for their child's future. In spite of the daunting challenges facing the world, including global warming, rising food prices and a billion people in poverty, the 7-billionth child will almost surely have a better life than the 3-billionth or 6-billionth child.

It's getting crowded out there. According to an updated report from the United Nations, the planet's population is not following the expected curve: topping out at about 9 billion mid-century and then leveling off. Instead, the demographic trends point to continued growth, bringing the worldwide population to 10.1 billion by the end of the century - nearly a 50% increase for a planet now inhabited by just under 7 billion. The highest rates of growth will be concentrated in poverty-stricken countries with low education levels, especially those in Africa, where the population is expected to more than triple to 3.5 billion.

India's population is now more than 1.2 billion, an increase of 181 million in a decade, putting it on course to surpass China as the world's most populous nation sometime after 2030, according to preliminary census results released Thursday. Though India's population growth rate slowed significantly to 17.6% over the last decade, putting it on target to double in size in about 50 years, the nation added almost enough people to match the biggest country in South America. "We have added almost one Brazil to our population in the last one decade," C. Chandramouli, India's census commissioner, told reporters Thursday.

The Muslim population in the United States is projected to more than double in the next 20 years, from 2.6 million to 6.2 million, according to a report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The estimated increase, which would put Muslims at 1.7% of the U.S. population, would be mainly from continued immigration and high fertility rates, the researchers said. The Pew report , released Thursday, puts the global Muslim population in 2030 at 2.2 billion, about a 35% increase, which would make Muslims more than a quarter of the world's population, slightly higher than the current share.