World Population Climbs to Five Billion

Some baby somewhere was born sometime yesterday driving the earth's population over the five billion mark, according to the Washington-based World Population Institute.

"The birth of a child is usually a joyous occasion and our fondest wishes and fervent prayers are extended to this precedent-setting newcomer to the world," Werner Fornos, the president of the institute, told reporters at a press conference earlier this week.

"This particular baby will probably need both and then some, for it is a sobering symbol of the shocking rapidity at which the world's population is multiplying," said the president of the private institute, which seeks a more even balance between the wealth of different geographical areas.

"The child very probably will be born in the Third World, where nine of every 10 babies are born today, and where poverty, disease, hunger, illiteracy and unemployment make life a daily struggle for survival," Fornos told reporters.

At the current rate of population growth, another three billion people will be living in 35 years, according to the institute's own estimates. It took about two million years for man's population to reach the current five billion figure.

The present population explosion started after the second World War, with the advent of more advanced medical treatments and more extensive public health programs, both of which lowered death rates, said William Alfonso, Saltonstall Professor of Population Policy in the School of Public Health.

The ever-increasing numbers of Homo sapiens inhabiting our planet have caused worry among statesmen and scholars about how the earth can support so many human mouths to feed, he said.

Figures Misleading

But although overpopulation is a major worry, Alfonso said, the World Population's figures are somewhat misleading.

"They might be off not by a day or a week, but by a year or three years," he said. "It's a publicity stunt. They're trying to make vivid" the population problem, Alfonso said, adding that the five billion figure is an "artificial fact."

The figures are probably off because they are derived from overly simple mathematical formulas, he said.

"You could figure out [the five billion mark] with a calculator," he said.