With the estimates that global population figures reached 7 billion on Monday, it is no wonder many citizens are concerned over the pace the Earth’s resources are being consumed.

“Seven billion people is astonishing … but we can’t support 7 billion people if we continue to use the world’s resources in the manner we are now,” said Colin Weaver, sophomore in global resource systems and nutritional science.

Weaver, who was a Borlaug-Ruan intern to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, China, through the World Food Prize, believes it is an extremely complicated issue, but simplified it by stating, “As the population continues to grow, we must produce more food on less land with less water, which is a very tough feat.”

The main issues associated with the increase in population, Weaver said, are urban sprawl, which in turn “decreases the amount of land otherwise used for the production of food,” food price increases, caused because the population is growing faster than the annual food supply, and shortages on water and energy resources, which has caused water tables across the globe to decrease drastically, leaving less water to grow crops.

Thursday night, as a part of the World Affairs and Live Green! Sustainability Series, Frances Moore Lappe will discuss these global topics covered in her latest book, “EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want,” at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

In a statement to Small Planet about the topics of her new book, Lappe said, “Solutions to global crises are within reach. Our challenge is to free ourselves from self-defeating thought traps so we can bring these solutions to life.”

Her book presents the argument that the way people view environmental challenges such as global hunger create, what she calls, “thought traps.” “EcoMind” presents the steps individuals need to escape this trap.

“Population pressure lurks behind most, if not all, environmental problems,” said William Gutowski, professor of meteorology.

Gutowski believes the increasing global population largely impacts his research on climate change. “If we don’t deal with it and think about what is happening, we may suffer the consequences or our children might suffer the consequences of not having confronted the issue directly,” he said.

In his view, the main means of solving the issue of drastic population increase is through the education of women. “Experience has shown that giving women control over their lives and education plays a major role in reducing population growth,” Gutowski said.

But he also hopes the average American can recognize how much of the world’s resources they are consuming.

“The more efficient we are with our resources, the more it can allow the rest of the world to achieve a better quality of life,” Gutowski said. “There is a clear global impact of increasing population.”

Weaver also agreed that educating women and men about family planning would lead to less environmental problems.

“Better family-planning practices, education and possibly legislation need to be implemented. Several African nations have average fertility rates as high as seven children born per woman, which is insanely high and contributing greatly to the world’s rapidly growing population,” Weaver said.

Overall, Weaver believes, “the world needs to embrace agricultural technology. The only way we will be able to produce more food on less land with less water is through research and new technology. A lot of this research is being conducted here at Iowa State University.”

Lappe is also the author of the 1971 book “Diet for a Small Planet,” which has sold more than 3 million copies. She has now written 18 books and is the co-founder of three organizations. In 2008, Lappe received the James Beard Foundation “Humanitarian of the Year” Award for her lifelong impact on the way people think about food, nutrition and agriculture, and in 2007 she became a founding member of the World Future Council, based in Hamburg, Germany.