Contact: Colin Mason, Population Research Institute, 540-622-5240 ext 209

FRONT ROYAL, Va., Oct. 5, 2011 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Population Research Institute (PRI) just released the fifth episode of their highly popular YouTube cartoon series -- just in time for the world's population to reach 7 billion people. The series, which has to date garnered over 800,000 views, is designed to humorously refute the idea of overpopulation with stick figure animation.

The latest video, available at www.overpopulationisamyth.com, is about two minutes long, and it deals with the issues surrounding our population's latest milestone. The video aims to show that, according to the UN's latest data, the world's population is not skyrocketing out of control, but rather slowing to a standstill before plummeting downward again.

"We set out to be entertaining first," says Colin Mason, PRI's Director of Media Production and the video's editor. "We figure if we can be funny and interesting visually, people will absorb the concepts."

"Essentially," Mason continues, "when people see the rate at which we're adding a billion people, they automatically assume that our population is ballooning at an unsustainable rate. But that's not the case at all . . . and most of the time, all it takes is a simple explanation of the math and people get it. The hard part is getting them interested enough to do that. That's what we hope to accomplish with these videos."

"The fight against the myth of overpopulation does not have to be a bare-knuckled brawl," says Steven Mosher, PRI's president. "These videos are funny and easy to digest, the very opposite of Al Gore's boring pronouncements on the 'dangers' of too many people. Our viewers end up considering the science that supports our pro-people position, often for the very first time. We say to our skeptics: watch, laugh, and learn."