The world welcomed its seventh billionth human member this Oct. 31, but is this momentous birth really a cause for celebration or concern?

According to data from the United Nations Population Division the world would hit the seven billion population mark on October 31, 2011 and it took humanity only a dozen years to add another billion to the planet. The steep population curve is likely to continue in the next few decades with demographers estimating that humanity will number at least 9.3 billion by 2050.

The rising population has brought fears that humanity will soon outstrip the Earth of resources and lead the billion people being born emerging nations immersed in poverty. Food production will have to step up for provide for these new billions. More acreage had been converted to agriculture in 1950 to 1980 than in the years from 1700 to 1850. The limits of energy are already being pushed to its limits with the current world population. How far will the increasing human population push in the next few years. With all of these concerns, should the nations of the world adopt China's one-child per family policy?

Back in 1979, China enacted the controversial policy that limited a family to only one child. In terms of effectiveness the policy worked and cut China's population to 250 million to 300 million according to Chinese authorities. But in other respects, the one-child per family policy has wreaked havoc on China's society spurning forced abortions and sterilizations. The preference for male children also resulted in a gender imbalance in country with more men than women in the country.

Rather than enforcing the policy, which wouldn't really work with other nations, the population explosion can be mitigated with other means, chief of which is education. Educating women is the first step in defusing the population bomb.

"Almost universally, women with higher levels of education have fewer children," wrote demographers in a paper in Science on July 29. Delaying child bearing can also ensure that women will still have options open to them that will be denied if they have children too early.

The best weapon humans may have against overcrowding is our innovation and technology. As technology progresses and science unlocks more secrets to feeding more people, we as a species may survive living in a crowded planet.