This week, the human species passed another milestone as the globe symbolically welcomed its 7 billionth member Monday.

The United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, released its “State of the World Population 2011” report on Oct. 26 in anticipation of the global population to hit the 7 billion mark.

According to the report, since the global population hit 2 billion in 1927, it has increased more than three-fold in 84 years. And though the United States Census Bureau disagrees with the UN’s projection, estimating 7 billion to be surpassed in spring 2012, one thing is for sure: 7 billion will happen.

The UNFPA’s report devotes much of its 132 pages to education, especially among the world’s youth. In fact, people 24 years old or younger make up almost half of the 7 billion, according to the report.

The remainder of the report chronicles many issues about population growth — overconsumption of resources, world health issues, economic development and questions of overpopulation in general.

Werner Baer, professor in economics, warned panic is not the correct response to rapid population growth, but said world leaders should proceed with caution in order to avoid economic repercussions on a global scale.

“People have been talking about overpopulation for 200 years,” he said. “But I’m not sure this tremendous growth in world population from the last few decades will continue. In general, the urbanization that’s taking place (will lend itself to) much smaller families.”

Matthew Winters, professor in political science, said he believes the rapid population growth will level off when developing nations increase their wealth.

“With increasing prosperity comes demographic transition,” he said.

Though urbanization may help curb rapid population growth, some aspects of urbanization lead to unequal distribution of resources.

Tom Bassett, professor in geography and global studies, weighed in on the issue of natural resources, pointing to overconsumption by more developed countries as a major contributing factor to general inequalities in resource distribution.

“A fifth of the world’s population consumes 66 times more resources than the poorest fifth,” he said. “The issue becomes not population and population control, but access to income. To point (the blame) on population growth is in many ways blaming the victim.”

For some regions of the globe, however, resources such as food are scarce no matter how evenly distributed the numbers may seem.

Richard Mulvaney, professor in natural resources and environmental sciences, said natural occurrences such as soil nutrient depletion are not helped along by rapid population growth and need.

Mulvaney said the current global food system is not sustainable and is beginning to see hard evidence of his theory.

“The signs are beginning to show up in India,” he said. “Their population, of course, is booming, and they’re having increasing difficulties maintaining crop production. For over 10 years now, (crop production) rates are stagnating or even decreasing.”

Bassett said there is plenty of food on earth, but unequal access to food. He believes the “overpopulation myth” is a distraction from the real issue of solving poverty.

“A lot of the overpopulation talk comes from people who are in denial about their role in consuming too many resources,” he said.

Winters pointed to modern technology’s role in the world food supply’s ability to fulfill its population needs.

“While the global population has been increasing rapidly, technology has advanced so that population growth has not led to mass starvation, or exhaustion of resources,” he said. “I’m optimistic that human ingenuity can continue to respond to demand from growing population.”

India’s population has been geometrically increasing and is now nearing China’s population of 1.37 billion. Combined with India’s 1.23 billion, both nations’ populations make up 36.7 percent of the world population, “according to a recent post”:http://wolframalpha.tumblr.com/post/11957703241/7-billion-people by Wolfram Alpha, a computational system.

The United States rounds off the top three populous countries with 313 million. Bassett pointed out that despite the large difference in populations, the United States continues to lead the globe in greenhouse gas emissions.

Accompanying the launch of the report, UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin stated the organization’s intent in a press release.

“The issue of population is a critical one for humanity and for the Earth,” he said. “But let us be clear: It is not a matter of space. The population question is one of equity, opportunity and social justice.”