100% agree, overpopulation will not be a problem for us when people are cured of aging. I've seen the calculations before for how many people could comfortably live in America if neccessary.

By the time a growing population even became annoying in some areas, we will have things like the ability to synthetically make food. We will spread out in teh star system if neccessary. Or merge with our machines via uploading farther into the future.

[Posted by: aa2 at September 16, 2006 12:18 AM]

Also, the age in which people get children is adapted to the total life-span, so back in the days when people lived to age 25 they got children at an earlier age than now, and now most are in the interval 20-35. If someone expect to live for 1000 years, he won't at age 30 feel "Ooh, it's getting late, must get a family and kids soon, or it'll be too late!" Rather, people will take their time, knowing that aging won't make it "too late".

In the worst case scenario, we'll simply have to regulate getting children so that it matches the death-rate. That would be somewhat bad, but not nearly as bad as aging and dying. And I very much doubt it will come to that.

[Posted by: ND at September 16, 2006 9:04 AM]

FYI: Here is a link to what I wrote on this topic in 1991:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=398

(The email addresses in that message now are out-of-date, but the concepts expressed still apply.)

[Posted by: Kevin Q. Brown at September 16, 2006 12:10 PM]

The best argument remains, I think, the fact that population grows much faster with the birth rate than with life expectancy.

[Posted by: Kip Werking at September 16, 2006 1:29 PM]

If this is true, this research to cure ageing. How do they suppose to cure ageing. The only sollution that I can come up with to cure ageing is stem cells. We would have to take stem cells from women that are pregnant. Thereby killing innocent children that are not even born yet.

[Posted by: MB at January 29, 2007 2:09 PM]

What incredible lies this article is. Overpopulation is a serious and severe problem. Anybody ever hear of natural resource limits? Gross pollution? Collapsing fisheries? Desertification? Acid rain? Climate change?

No "back of the envelope" calculations are going to honestly assess the present population damage to the environment, which is presently teetering on collapse. Add more humans to the mixture and you have sure-fired recipe for global disaster, which is exactly what you are advocating.

[Posted by: SurvivalAcres at February 20, 2007 8:57 PM]

I don't completely understand what you are saying. First you state that Malthus and Malthusian beliefs are wrong. Where is your proof? If they are wrong, why is it still being taught as a fact in college classes? If the population is going to stabilized in developed countries, it does not matter because the undeveloped countries will continue to grow until their capacity is reached, then the developed countries will experience a high rate of immigration. If you extend life expectancy, aren't you just creating an older, more conservative population to drain any financial aid we may have for the elderly today? Many studies say we will run out of petroleum and other valuable resources within the century. What is your back up resource for that? Other than E85, which is not entirely environmentally friendly, nor is it efficient, there are no real solutions. Why hasn't the United States population growth rate decreased like the ones in Europe? How do you explain a worldwide growth rate of 3 people per second? Where is your proof for anything you are saying?

[Posted by: Lisa H at April 12, 2007 1:46 PM]

Total BS.

We are *already* resource constrained. Most arable farm land is already under cultivation, world-wide. Availability of fresh water means that little if any new land will be cultivated, ever. The increasing cost of energy is directly driven by increasing demand from an increasingly large and affluent global population competing for a declining resource (mostly petroleum). Pollution has already fouled our air and waterways. Many species are already gone and others are in rapid decline. Fisheries are in decline pretty much everywhere, with many previously popular species of fish already gone from our tables.

In other words, the facts are plain: lots of increasingly wealthy people are doing irreparable harm to our biosphere, and ultimately the price is being paid and will increasingly be paid by us, in the form of lowered quality of life, health problems, higher frequency and severity of weather-related natural disasters, etc.

How can you conceivably reconcile these facts with such drivel about "over-population is a myth"?

[Posted by: IS at October 10, 2007 8:39 PM]

Thank you for covering the population myth.
The truth is population is on the verge of imploding.
Birth rates are down, folks are ageing and the attack on our health is working (killing us off).
There is plenty of everything except inteligence.
The freaks that run the world are running scams on us and brain washing us into a scarcity mentality.
Here are some links for you..

root.man peak
http://tinyurl.com/ymcxyg

population impolosion
http://tinyurl.com/2rc5a9

Keep after it!

rm

[Posted by: root man at October 11, 2007 12:10 AM]

Yeah, I'd love to live longer, and 'am' practicing calorie restriction (saves on food too, SA :)
But this is pie in the sky. You can't just reorder the entire society and power structure to make this work out. There are things in motion, and the people pushing the levers have a much smaller population in mind, not a larger one. Think around 50mill or less, and you'll get the grim picture. SA has it down. There's finite resource limits we're pushing up against, and even if we had power & metals from Space, we're putting too much heat into the biosphere & destabilizing a lot of delicate weather flows and temperature loops.

If you have a way to convince the world power structures to completely rebuild society, using energy we don't have, and goodwill the West has blown, and rewrite human nature to be peaceful in stead of tribal and xenophobic while you're at it, we're never going to see the 10 billion mark.

And by the time I'm in my 50s, if I live that long, the population of a frigid, wind-blasted Earth will probably be less than 5% of peak.

If we're REALLY, REALLY damn lucky, the newspace folks will manage to establish a toehold in Space, and we won't be doomed to a slow slide back to a future-primitive Stone Age.

[Posted by: Airship Captain at October 11, 2007 4:10 PM]

I basically favor putting emphasis on life extension, though I'm not too big on Borg-type transhumanism. Nevertheless, the problem of human population increase, and the resulting strain both on planetary resources and social adaptation is real and could well "spoil the party." Right now, it looks like, with or without a globalist conspiracy to reduce the human population, it's going to be a near thing whether sufficient substitutes will be found for petrolem and other vital resources to sustain even the present population.

I'm less concerned about the demographic changes if the life-extension technology does in fact preserve or restore youthful health. Most probably retirement as we know it would be replaced by extended sabbaticals and career changes to avoid psychological burnout. Admittedly, there may be some who, in fact just want to retire and live off their accumulated resources (including pension rights) who would be inhibited from doing so by social guilt absent the "justification" of age-related loss of abilities. But I think that could be managed by encouraging development of "fun" skills that are also socially useful, such as amateur astronomy.

[Posted by: JackBNimble at October 12, 2007 8:21 PM]

Poorer countries are more likely to be inhabited by large families than those of their wealthier counterparts. Think about it! The more children a poor family has, the more likely that at least one of them will survive and grow up healthy. This is survival-based eugenics that has been brought about via the consequence of poverty-induction policies that have been place for many years. Overpopulation is a myth that has been craftily created by the global elite who see us as nothing but cattle, as their slaves. Our suffering is their religion, and theres more to come!!

[Posted by: Ralph at October 12, 2007 9:00 PM]

Peak oil is a lie. Oil is not a fossil fuel.

Read the evidence and refute it if you can.

http://tinyurl.com/ymcxyg

Overpopulation is a lie.

[Posted by: root man at October 18, 2007 10:01 PM]

"Peak oil is a lie. Oil is not a fossil fuel."

The united states peaked and went into decline in the 1970s. Well all over the world are going into decline. Oil is a fossil fuel and those who believe otherwise should short oil right now. I'm long oil and making a killing.

Don't listen to the snake oil salesman telling you that peak oil is not real.

[Posted by: General Specific at October 19, 2007 11:27 PM]

Regardless of how many people the world can contain, aren't there enough of us already?

I climbed the second highest mountain in England, and it was like grand central station.

There are enough of us already, and it seems the ones who are reproducing the most are those who have little or no concern for their environment.

It's fine for those who can afford a massive house out in the country, and send someone out to do their shopping, but there are those of us working hard, and with little wealth who have to witness the destruction first hand.

[Posted by: fran at October 25, 2007 12:34 PM]

who is the author of the article?
kindly state it asap...

[Posted by: alexa at January 22, 2008 9:28 PM]

1) The Earth is Finite. 100 widgets won't fit into a 50-widget bag. 100 cattle can't graze forever in a field that can only sustainably support 50. It's called basic logic folks...

2) Future population estimates aren't the point really - population is already well beyond a sustainable level. Every day 200,000 more people are born than die. That is a whole extra New York City worth of people every couple of months or so. Do you think the 3 Billion people in poverty are that way only because of greed or inefficiency? There is simply not enough food, water, and energy for 6.6 Billion people on this planet. Truth be told, there isn't enough to support even 3 Billion sustainably if they live above 3rd World poverty levels of consumption.

3) World Grain Ending Stocks are in sharp decline NOW. World Grain Production per person has been in decline for 20 years. World Irrigated Area per person is in sharp decline. Go ahead and do a Google image search - you will find the proof.

4) World fresh water supplies are declining NOW. The Ogallala aquifer that waters much of the American Midwest is declining so rapidly that it will be functionally dry within 40 years. The Aral Sea and Lake Chad are almost all dried up. Rivers from The Colorado in America to the Yellow in China are frequently not even reaching all the way to the sea before they dry up.

4) World Oil Production has peaked (or is within 5% of the peak) and will decline within 10 years. When it does, world food production will decline. Modern agriculture is oil-dependant to the extreme.

5) Oil energy ALONE does the equivalent of 300 man-hours of labor each and every day for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Windmills and solar cells will never do this much total work. When the oil starts to decline, unless we have Nuclear Fusion on line (we are too late) the world will enter a period of global famine and anarchy. (Ever see 'The Road Warrior'?)

6) 'You guys have been wailing your gloom-and-doom scenario for years and you are always wrong - the world is fine.' Let's use that exact same logic on you Christians now: 'You guys keep telling us that Jesus is coming back and we better get ready, but he never shows up - you are wrong.'

JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING HASN'T HAPPENED YET DOESN'T MEAN IT NEVER WILL.

7) Do I have to mention Global Climate Change? If I do, you will probably argue forever about this and overlook my main points - so I won't. But if I DID mention it, one could surely see that carbon emissions come more abundantly from more people.

Imagine that you are an archaologist looking at the remains of an ancient dead civilization. Suppose you find evidence that their religious practices caused them to be unable to adapt to a new threat to their civilization, and so even though the priests offered sacrifices and the people obeyed their leaders, they were eventually swept away by the relentless tide of a danger that they could never truly comprehend within the confines of their religious/cultural mindset.

Is this not what happened to the Aztecs?

Is this not what is happening to US today?

[Posted by: David Nicol at February 6, 2008 5:44 PM]

I think that, to cure aging, we are going to need to harvest baby souls. Then, we will give the baby to old people, to stop aging, which causes over population and the pollution of our oceans. We need to think about the future... one day, we will indeed merge with machines like aa2 explains, so we can then go to the "star system" where we will rule the universe and baby souls will live on. How soon can we accomplish this, this "stopping of the aging?" The attack on our health is a conspiracy by our elders, the baby lovers. Overpopulation will cease to exist, and dinosaurs will come back as animals for us to ride in space, close to Saturn.

[Posted by: Jello Mother at March 4, 2008 6:40 PM]

Jello Mother is right. The baby souls are indeed needed to cure aging. Once aging is cured, overpopulation will no longer be a problem. Our superior health will allow us to experiment with the merging of humans and machines. We will, essentially, become cyborgs. This is already being studied, and I expect to see its effects in my lifetime. We will also be able to bring back the dinosaurs, since the world will no longer be so crowded, and just as we have domesticated cats, dogs, etc., the dinosaurs will be our pets. We will use them for transportation, and we will be able to make them survive in space by turning them into cyborgs as well. Research is already showing that this is possible.
Baby souls are the key. Once we harvest them, the rest will simply fall into place.
PS Where can I get a widget bag? I really need one of those! I can't find them at WalMart!

[Posted by: Triscuit Face at March 5, 2008 1:12 PM]

Supposedly, the comments here undergo a review process before inclusion on the board. It would seem that the standards for inclusion are low indeed.

It may seem humorous to spew tales of pet dinosaurs and such, but perhaps you should stop being clever long enough to see what is before you. I suppose you are a younger person. What I am saying is that you are about to be given a hollowed-out shell of a crappy world as your inheritance. Your parents, grandparents, and their parents basically took whatever they wanted out of a treasure of finite size and have only left you the box the treasure came in. You have been stolen from, but you simply don't know this yet.

You suppose that the world will just be there for you when you are 30 or 40 like it always has been for those before you. It won't. Within 10 years we will not have 24-hour electricity everywhere in America - it will be rationed. We will not be able to drive anywhere we like anymore - gas will be rationed. Food will cost 5-10 times what it does today, and rent/mortagages will go up even though people will have less money than today. Unemployment will be 15-20%, and huge permanent communities of homeless squatters will appear in every major city. Riots will break out. Life will be vicious, dirty, and poor.

All of these problems will force the government to restrict civil liberties and constitutional rights just to maintain control. People will be held without trial, and personal ownership of guns will be outlawed.

The goverment will be forced to put millions of people to work and also to feed them. This will provide the right environment where total Socialism can be implemented in America, destroying our nation. And because we will also be at war constantly to secure dwindling oil reserves, our nation will begin to look outwardly much like a Fascist State.

This is the world we are giving to you. Enjoy. You can't see this coming yet unless you look very hard like I have. This is because our entire economy is dependant upon future growth for current prosperity. Business interests and politicians need to constantly reinforce an image of never-ending growth, or the people will stop investing and spending and the economy will collapse.

Socialism is a stupidly unfair and inefficient system. But Capitalism is like a very perky super-optimistic pep rally held for a football team that may or may not actually be any good. Even though the team may totally suck, the pep squad keeps up the cheer all the same so you won't NOTICE how sucky the team actually is. And because Capitalism requires never-ending growth or it will die, if the team doesn't get better every year (even if times are good) the whole thing will still fall apart.

What we have right now is the end of times when the pep squad can still convince the people that things are still good. Soon, the mounting numbers of fumbles, interceptions, and real crappy play will have the crowd slowly start to boo.

So leaving metaphor-land (since you didn't understand my widget bag metaphor) let me be clear. The problems in the world like higher prices for everything, unemployment, famine, war, and reduced quality of life will start top get dramtically worse during the next few years. People will get really worried. Then, at some point, things will break down suddenly and the new impoverished, starving, anarchic world will emerge.

People will blame this on one thing or another. But there is only 1 real cause of it. OVERPOPULATION - too many people consuming too much stuff too quickly. Locusts.

So why talk about this? I know that most of you will just think I am a kook who thinks the sky is falling. People have said that to me. But I never mentioned the sky. I just said that your life will go on in massively sucky new ways very soon as a logical consequence of some indisputable facts. I don't get any kick out of this nor do I wish to say 'told you so' when it happens. It just seems to me to be the right thing to do to warn people so that they can take steps to make life better when times get tough. Most of you won't. But some of you might.

[Posted by: David Nicol at March 5, 2008 6:32 PM]

I just can't believe how unbelievably ignorant the author or this article is.

synthetic food? fine if we run out of resources, (although i can't help but think of Soylent Green).
but why would we run out of resources? oh right, OVERPOPULATION! how long does it take a person to eat 1,000 pounds of food? a long time. but how long does it take a thousand people to eat the same amount of food? not very long at all. we are using up our resources because there are too many people on this planet.

ok, so let's move into space, right? oh sure, as if corrupting one planet isn't enough.... there are too many people taking up too much space, so we're just going to find more space to invade? i'm sorry, but that's completly selfish BS.

and cure aging? it's not something you can cure. it's NATURAL. it's called TIME. you can't change that. as much as america is obsessed with looking young, you simply can't do it forever without seriously screwing with nature. you want to mess up the planet even more?

you know, maybe our world is screwed. just stop and consider everything bad going on on this planet and you'll get what i mean. but i refuse to believe that and i hope you all can have a hopeful attitude about this too. instead of condemning the world we live and and just moving further into space or f-ing with mother nature even more, why don't we try to fix the problem we created? we can't go back in time and change what we did, but we can change our attitudes about our lives today so we can promise this planet and the generations to come a better life.

fun fact: did you know that the people of the world produce enough grains and farm grown food to sustain 9 billion people? nine billion. we have a population of about 6 billion. so why are people starving? meat, among other reasons. an insane percentage of these grains are feed to animals that we breed to kill. fine, right? it's just feeding food to food, so no harm done, no resources lost. WELL, the protein ration of how much you feed an animal to how much you get out of it, on average, is 10 to 1. that means for every 10 protein you feed a cow, you only get 1 back. so why are people starving? we're feeding all our resources to animals we kill for less nutritional value.
you want more resources? stop eating meant. strop buying animal by-products. cut down your portions until you're vegetarian then take the next step to become vegan. it's not as hard as you think.

[Posted by: Kate Jensen at April 24, 2008 8:15 PM]

First of all, I agree that aging would help with preventing overpopulation, but I could also say we can not depend on technologies and age extension to completely eliminate this problem.

I am quite divided on this subject, to an extent. But I can say enviromental stress and decline of vital resources is not completely to blame on growing human populations as much as it is on condensed populations in cities, and misuse of land (ex. Amazon land is being used to raise cattles and things for fast food restaurants) which could be used for better purposes.

All in all, large populations is a problem, but it isn't going to be the doom of us all (I assure you there are far more many & larger problems that could be fixed that are destroying this planet).

Also, if overpopulation was the ''root'' of all problems, how would you deal with it anyways? I mean, are you saying its a problem and we're going to need to control it but putting restirctions on birth or by killing innocent peoples? (I strongly believe its a person's natural right to have a child, though).

[Posted by: Rebecca Lynn at April 27, 2008 7:43 PM]

What are the 'larger' problems that afflict our planet? Climate change, pollution, poverty, war or famine? ALL OF THESE ARE CAUSED PRIMARILY BY OVERPOPULATION.

CO2 emissions are a function of human population. Remember that without industry, we could not support this level of population.

Pollution severity is a function of human population. Same as CO2.

Poverty is caused by resource scarcity, which is caused by overly-numerous and/or overly-dense groups of people all needing the same resources.

War is caused by international tensions resulting from the aformentioned resource scarcity.

Famine is caused by the same factors as poverty.

ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS ARE DRIVEN BY POPULATION.

I don't advocated killing anybody, but we can make changes in the laws and tax codes to make it damn expensive to have more than 2 kids, and offer great incentives to have 1 or zero. Also, what about some simple, effective leadership? People will usually do what is required if you explain what is going on an provide some leadership they respect.

As for the 'right' to have offspring, this is something that needs to change. By you exercising this 'right', you imperil every other person on the planet. Obviously, this 'right' is of little value if exercising it causes suffering for yourself and your children.

The right to reproduce must be restrained within prudent bounds. Humanity is past its childhood phase of careless and thoughtless freedom. Now we must embrace adult realities and restrain ourselves just as a young adult must learn to do. But this is not all bad. Just as an adult who is disciplined can earn far more freedom for himself than a child truly can, we by adopting a more mature attitude about reproducing will find life on this planet becomes more peaceable and free for all.

[Posted by: David Nicol at May 8, 2008 8:02 AM]

This guy is really dumb, overpopulation probably won't happen, but this guy is a dumb ass. He has no proof, and he seems pretty sure of his dumbness.

[Posted by: Alex Friedlen at May 8, 2008 8:08 AM]

Why are comments here moderated? Obviously they let anybody say anything. Alex's comment is nothing but a moronic personal attack. And Alex does not seem to listen well either.

WE ARE ALREADY OVERPOPULATED.

It is not something that 'might' happen in the future.

Proof? It's all over. But for starters, the reason gasoline is up to $4/gallon is that we are starting to (worldwide) produce less oil than we need. This is because we are running out of oil. And this is because we used it up so quickly. And THIS is because there are too many people here using it.

[Posted by: David Nicol at May 9, 2008 12:32 AM]

BTW Alex,

Congratulations on your Bar Mitzvah this past 12th of April. But I'm not sure if your parents David and Karen would approve of you insulting strangers over the internet.

Shalom

[Posted by: David Nicol at May 9, 2008 1:13 AM]

Comments are moderated largely for the purpose of eliminating autospam and "anti-aging" junk advertising. Ad hominems directed at me are fair game; directed at other people not so much.

The comments in this post so far serve a very useful illustration of the degree to which common beliefs about overpopulation - and, by extension, fundamental economics - have become quite divorced from objective reality and science. It's much more a matter of self-destuctive myth, and the reactions people always give when their myths are attacked, than debate over facts.

[Posted by: Reason at May 9, 2008 9:14 AM]

It would seem that it is you who are espousing unscientific and illogical beliefs. Your assertion that the earth can support 'tens of billions' of people fails to take into account several factors:

1) Critical resources of energy and food production are finite and already at near-maximum possible production

2) Quality of life is determined by the proportion of the earth's resources that can be allocated per person. As population increases, this is reduced impoverishing more and more people

3) The greater the population and population density, the more draconian and total the government needs to be in order to preserve order. Therefore, population causes political changes leading to less and less personal freedom

4) Human impact on the environment is proportional to human population. Even if you can feed everybody and give them all energy, the biosphere cannot perpetually accommodate multiple billions of people

5) There is quite simply, no need for all these people to exist. Their existance only provides to dumb brute force than empowers both socialist and capitalist forces which tend to oppose human liberty

6) Assuming we could feed tens of billions of people, we would need to create such an abundance of infrastructure so that we would need to pave over virtually all the open spaces of the world to some degree. Is this the kind of world we wish to live in, a 'Borg' style planet?

It is YOU who is the myth purveyor.

[Posted by: David Nicol at May 9, 2008 9:16 PM]

Read the book Collapse. Read about Rawanda. Read about deforestation, and hear the stories about the overfishing of our Oceans.

When you have a globe packed with people, you have very little margin for error.

And the real problem is in the third world. If they all want to start eating tuna for dinner, there will be no tuna left. Or fish for that matter. No forest once they start making wooden beds, tables to eat off... And why shouldnt they have these things.... we do?

Rather, bring population growth down... figure out a good way to reduce 3rd world population growth now - so they're not led to genecide locally, and in time, real conflict on a global scale.

[Posted by: Tim H at July 19, 2008 9:31 PM]

Global Warming is an important subject that needs to be handled for a better future for both the human race and ecologies worldwide.

However, I'll argue lowering population (in either a "hands off" or "hands on" fashion for governments) is not likely to help deal with this issue.

First of all, there is not a correlation between the amount of greenhouse gases and people in a nation. (possible response: What? I thought people contribute to global warming? More people more warming, right?) If having more people was key to increasing global warming gases than China and India would not have produced less greenhouse gases than the USA throughout the 20th century. Each of them had a much greater population than the US and polluted less. Now when China is finally overtaking the USA in terms of emissions. Ask why is it doing so? There has not been a sudden baby boom to ramp up population (the 1 child policy has actually been effective, despite corruption and loopholes, in the overall goal of lowering China's birthrate.) China's emissions rise has occurred alongside a birthrate drop because China is industrializing. China is building 1 new coal power plant per week because new factories are being built and a Chinese consumer class is rising that purchases electronic devices (as well as the SUVs that have finally stopped selling in the USA).

An interesting additional point about China's population control efforts relates to the possibility they helped China become the top emitter of CO2. This is an unusual way of looking at the situation, but if you take the Solow growth model from economics population growth is viewed as having a slowing effect on (at least in the short term) economic development. The wealth that would have otherwise have been spent on raising children could instead be put towards creating new factories and coal power plants (to provide the electricity to run them). As the latter are very much not an alternative source of energy it is possible that the population control policy contributed, in part, to greater pollution in and from China.

It is even possible to have a population shrinkage and an increase in global warming gases-look at Europe with a shrinking population in some nations, they haven't stopped polluting. Many are still better than the USA on an emissions per person basis but their pollution went up despite a shortage of babies in some places.

If you want to handle global warming I would encourage handling the direct sources of emissions. These (especially if you are talking about the carbon that has to be brought up from underground and then put in the air) are the devices we use.

This is why highly developed nations are generally much worse polluters than less developed nations-the latter have less in the way of automobiles or energy requiring devices.

To solve Global Warming (which is going to be with us for many years due to the damage already done) deal with the devices we like to have that add more greenhouse gases to the air. Either make them effectively carbon neutral or see if you can live without them.

The number of devices rather than humans is the real problem. You can actually lower the number of humans on the planet and see the number of devices they use rise through greater numbers per person/household. There once was a time when the average US household didn't have 2 or more cars, more than 1 TV and so on.

The greatest irony of all is that the nations where the birthrate is highest are also tend to be those where the emissions per person rate is lowest. Global Warming is mostly caused by us in the developed world who already have low birthrates and high levels of device use.

There is absolutely no guarantee that lowering population levels will reduce global warming. With the possibility that some businesses may try to further mechanize (using devices run on energy from carbon emitting sources) to produce more with fewer workers there is even the theoretical possibility that the emissions problem will become worse.

I would argue that saying the number humans is the problem may sometimes occur from having a bit to much Malthus in one's intellectual diet-and don't forget that history has frequently proven wrong those who come up with ideas based on his theories.

Thanks for reading through the long post and sorry for any typos that I suspect are there.

[Posted by: Nathaniel at July 29, 2008 4:44 PM]

At the risk of wasting pixel space on those of you who have already swallowed the "what problem? there's no problem!" kool aid....

We’ve already exceeded global carrying capacity. We are now in “overshoot”. (insert image of a car flying smoothly through the air after having been driven off a cliff here)

Global population is nearing 7 billion. Different theorists using different methods seem to end up agreeing that global carrying capacity is probably about 2 billion. (This assumes some level of social justice and a moderate, low by US standards, standard of living. More is possible if you accept a cattle car / Matrix-esque "life".)

In any case, we will get to that much-lower-than-7-billion number the hard way (wars, famine, disease, and their accompanying losses of environmental quality, freedom, and social justice) OR the less hard way (immediately and drastically reducing our population voluntarily). Yes, all of us, yes, everywhere. There is no scenario anywhere in which population growth is a "good thing" long term.

Yes a drop in population would cause problems, but none of those problems are as big as the problems, suffering, and environmental collapse that is certain to occur if we don’t.

It’s too late for any “us” vs “them” arguments or any belief that national boundaries will do much to help anyone in the long run. This is a global issue with local and nation-state consequences. For example, immigration is a consequence of overpopulation, not a cause of it. Likewise, global climate change is not impressed by national boundaries.

One of the key factors in this scenario is also our sense of time. This is a slow motion crash that requires immediate action, a bit like trying to steer a supertanker that's on a crash course by putting in consistent input over a multi year time frame, and the one effective input is for all of us everywhere to stop making babies. The supertanker analogy is also apt because it was the "one time gift" of oil that allowed us to get this far out on a limb, and peak oil has already happened.

No technological / "alternative energy" options have the capacity or can be ramped up fast enough to avoid major global calamity. That isn't to say we shouldn't do them. Aggressively shifting to alternative energy is necessary, just not sufficient. And relocating off world or into some post human mode isn't going to be possible for many, if any and won't help either.

For more comprehensive analysis of all this I suggest

Approaching the Limits (see essay links)
www.paulchefurka.ca

Bruce Sundquist on environmental impact of overpopulation
http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/

Oil as 'one time gift' that allowed a temporary capacity increase:
The Oil Drum Peak Oil Overview - June 2007
www.theoildrum.com/node/2693

Bandura etc.
http://growthmadness.org/2008/02/18/impeding-ecological-sustainability-through-selective-moral-disengagement/

Albert Bartlett on the exponential function as it relates to population and oil:
http://c-realm.blogspot.com/2008/12/kmo-interview-with-albert-bartlett.html

...and of course the classic "Overshoot" by William Catton:
http://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolutionary-Change/dp/0252009886

[Posted by: Evasta at January 1, 2009 8:54 PM]

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!! You guys are so oblivious to everything Overpopulation is REAL! Have you by chance been to the grocery store and noticed that the price of food has gone up.I can't believe this is a real site you all must have a third 21 chromosome i hope you guys starve first!

[Posted by: Appeal To Reason at January 6, 2009 6:53 AM]

There is NO OVER POPULATION except in the minds of thoose who have read PAUL EHRLICHES fruadulent book and all those predictions made by EHRLICH none of them ecer happened or ever will happen but the liberal left-wing news media still blabber his idiotic poppycock

[Posted by: Flu-Bird at January 11, 2009 10:01 AM]

A very well manage earth could certainly hold more people, but do we really want to be croweded all the time? To suppress most wild areas ? Is it reallistic when right now with the actual american life style 4 everybody will need about 6 earth just for CO2 management? I think the choice is simple live longer but have less children! They'll be gratefull to land inside a non crowded world! ... Second thing why do you need children for ? For you ?? For them ?? .. Better to make sure the world is a safe place!
---
... "There is NO OVER POPULATION ..." ... so naïve, what about all these exhaust fumes sticking into our lungs ? Would be alright to be 7 billion with a far better life style, but most people who are anti-malthusianist would never give up their cars! Would you? ... and there are no clean cars, this is an illusion!

[Posted by: Niklaus at January 18, 2009 7:12 AM]

A perfect world.. Who are these people that will manage this perfect world. Every political system is a compromise so therefore every decision is a compromise.

We will never have a perfect world and that means too many people will always be a problem. Its common sense.

There are too many people already. It wont stop though.

Governments want more money, business wants more money, you and I want more money so therefor we need to populate.. Thats the only reason why we grow the population. Its not because we want more .... It because we all need more.

The system will never be perfect and that will lead to major problems involving more and more people.

Greed equals growth in the population.

[Posted by: Vaughan at January 26, 2009 4:32 AM]

Mnay have bought into this population bomb poppycock of PAUL EHRLICH and WORLD WATCH hook,line and sinker

[Posted by: Birdzilla at May 7, 2009 1:12 PM]

paul Ehrlich is not the first to spread the false roomers of over population its just he gets a bunch of crazies on his side

[Posted by: BIRD OF PARADISE at May 19, 2009 1:36 PM]

Hey Malthusians! Your arguments suck. First, isn't there enough energy? Sun gives us in 40 minutes what we currently get in a YEAR from all energy sources. So, the question is to harvest all this energy ASAP. How about solar energy installed power? It doubles every 2 year, just by Moore's law. With current technologies we can get all our energy from Sun already by 2030. And they are improving, and we still have all other energy sources. So "peak oil" is not our issue, it's oil companies' issue (which are already switching to alternative solutions).

Second, what is "the global capacity". The capacity of what? With which technologies? For example, in Stone Age this capacity could not exceed several millions; in Middle Ages China could not get past 100 mln because they regularly died from hunger. The solutions always were technological, and they will be. What is a resource and what is not, is also determined by current technological level. Which is increasingly increased, i. e. acceletating.

Third, which technologies do more harm to the environment per capita? Look back to the Stone Age capacity, Middle Ages capacity... Do you Malthusians know what is the leading source of CO2 in Asia? Cows. And all the low-tech agriculture, low-tech industry. High-tech is not. Which are rapidly becoming clean, but not in a moment.

Fourth, are you Malthusians really ready to start killing people by action (with a gun) or inaction (fighting anti-aging activity). What are you calling for is called CANNIBALISM because you are declaring that some people's very existence is (or can be) a problem. This is simply INHUMAN. A kind of FASCISM.

People can never be a problem by definition. Period. Re-read the Declaration of Human Rights. Each person has a right to live. Period. Not "a right to live to 120 and then must die". Not "a right to live but mustn't use gene therapy", etc. It is our common responsibility to guarantee this right for everyone and for as long as possible. If Earth becomes the limit, the global power must be turned to space. Not closing up and killing others "in the name of nature". This is not human nature. The very human nature is to overcome any "natural" possibilities. We didn't have fire-breathing, but we found how to make fire. We didn't have sharp teeth but invented axes and speares. We didn't have wings, but created airplanes. And we currently don't live past 120, but will find how to. Any attempt to deny humans extend their possibilities is in fact a step back from humanity into the jungle. That's what are you Malthusians calling for - jungle law for all. And we the life extenders are not with you in these attempts. Humanity is meant to be more than smart apes.

[Posted by: Vx at May 23, 2009 5:43 PM]