By Kay Kiser, author of Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries, Book 2 of the Modern Mythology Series
Originally Posted May 20, 2019 on blog www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com
Who says the world is overpopulated? And what does that mean anyway? Hunger? Crowding? Environmental harm? For over 200 years we’ve been told that the world is overpopulated. But is it? Check this out.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus thought the world was overpopulated when world population was under one billion. In his book, An Essay on the Principles of Population, he advocated not supporting the poor and controlling the population. He was wrong.
When world population was about 1.3 billion, Charles Darwin, who’s Theory of Evolution was based on Malthus’ book, thought the struggle for survival would cause the extinction of underdeveloped cultures by developed peoples. He was wrong.
Francis Galton, creator of Eugenics, the so-called science of improving the human race, thought the African races were so inferior genetically that Chinese should be settled in Africa to drive the Negro races to extinction and replace them[1]. He was wrong.
Around 1920 when the population was about 1.9 billion, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and a prominent eugenicist, believed we needed to get rid of “human weeds,” including dark skinned people from Southern Europe, Africa and India as well as the mentally or physically impaired. She advocated for sterilization, birth control, and abortion. She was wrong.
In the 1930s when world population was about 2 billion, Adolf Hitler believed the world was overpopulated and sought to gain “Lebensraum” (living room) by invading other countries and exterminating “inferior” people, including Jews and Gypsies. By doing so he sought to create a super race of Arian Germans. He was wrong.
In 1966 when the world population was 3.3 billion, to control population, under President Johnson, US AID began requiring population control quotas as a condition for receiving foreign aid. Mass sterilization camps were set up in poor countries using equipment supplied by the UN and US. He was wrong.
Meanwhile, in the 1960s the Green Revolution of higher yield, more disease resistant and more nutritious varieties, increased crop yields by orders of magnitude, making it possible to feed the world without sacrificing forests and other pristine wilderness areas.
When The Population Bomb was published in 1968 by Paul Ehrlich, world population was about 3.7 billion. He believed the world was overpopulated and required drastic action to reduce the population in order to prevent mass starvation and collapse of the society. He was wrong.
In 1972, after nearly 30 years of controlling disease carrying insects, DDT was banned by the EPA in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting claims of harm[2]; the ban was based more on political fears of growing populations in developing countries than on real science or perceived harm. Before the ban DDT eliminated Malaria in the developed world. Developing countries were threatened with loss of foreign aid if they did not discontinue DDT use. Most did, but India did not comply.
Today the world population is about 7.5 billion. USAID, UNFPA, (UN Fund for Population Activities), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, Marie Stopes and other groups continue the Overpopulation Myth with abortion, sterilization, IUD implantation and birth control activities in poor countries around the world. They are still wrong.
So, is the world overpopulated? Not by any measure. Let’s look at what we mean by overpopulated.
Do we have enough food for everyone? Yes. Thanks to modern agricultural techniques and high yield crops there is more than enough for at least 11 billion people without any increase in acres cultivated. Advancing technology will probably multiply the yield still further as it has in the past. Myths against modern pesticides, herbicides, modern agricultural techniques and biotech crop enhancements (aka GMO) are used to keep poor countries on subsistence agriculture, which results in deforestation to replace depleted fields.
Is the food distributed fairly? No. Other than disasters and wars, hunger has more to do with local politics than with food supplies. Corrupt governments, propped up by government to government foreign aid, which the poor rarely see, are incentivized to help with international population control schemes, but not to build infrastructure, attract investment and help to raise the standard of living of their own rural poor. As long as the people are kept poor, the aid money keeps coming, so corrupt governments have little or no incentive to improve conditions for their people. Foreign aid should be replaced by foreign and domestic investment in infrastructure with accountability.
Is there enough room for all the people? Compared to the land area of the earth, the population is very small. For perspective, if all the people in the world were placed in an area the size of Texas, each person would have almost 93 square meters. A family of four would have 372 square meters. That’s about 4000 square feet, enough for a 2000 square foot house and a yard or garden. This thought experiment puts population in perspective with the size of the earth. No one is suggesting we actually do this, except for the loony left who are grasping at straws to defeat this argument against the overpopulation myth.
Global average population is 55 people per square kilometer of land area, excluding Antarctica. That’s 17.96 acres per family of four. In 2016, over 54% of the population lived in cities, which cover only 2.7% of the land. That means that 46% of the population is rural and lives on 97.3% of the land area. That calculates to 26 people /km2 in rural areas or 38 acres per family of four. Yes, I know that large areas are uninhabitable. Even if we assumed 50% uninhabitable, that’s still a lot of land per person. The fact that only 10% of the land is actually inhabited doesn’t change the picture. There is still a lot of land out there to accommodate and feed a larger population. All this doesn’t even count the 71% of the earth’s surface that is water, which is a food source and a highway between markets.
Is Overpopulation causing Climate Change? No. As a part of the biosphere, even with technology the human race is a small contributor to the total carbon and carbon dioxide gas, and is exceeded by orders of magnitude by land and sea vertebrate animals, and even more extremely by insects and other invertebrates, both in numbers and total mass. One estimate claims there are 300 pounds of insects for every human pound, or 1.4 billion insects per person. With almost 2 million different species described so far and possibly many more un-described, estimates vary widely, even for human populations, especially in poor countries. Corrupt governments may over estimate numbers and under report economic conditions to receive more foreign aid dollars.
Is the environment being harmed by too many people? No. Poverty, including subsistence farming, not population, causes environmental harm and deforestation. Modern agriculture and higher yield crop varieties can end deforestation and provide surplus crops to sell. Roads, electricity, clean water and disease control can provide a healthy workforce and energy to attract investors and run industry. Historically, improved infrastructure and opportunity also stabilize populations and reduce family size. By keeping the poor in poverty, environmentalists actually are doing more harm to the environment. Raising standards of living means people will be able to care for their environment.
Many developed countries have bought into the overpopulation myth to the point that their birth rates are below replacement value. Japan, which reached one of the lowest global birth rates of 1.4 in 2014, has started paying people to have children because of the looming demographic catastrophe of too few people to work and support the elderly who cannot work. Some of the highest density areas of the world are the richest. Look at Shanghai. It is not only the most populated city in the world, 24 million, with an average population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2 urban) but is one of the most prosperous.
Rural poor areas in developing countries are underpopulated. With diseases from insects and contaminated water taking a high toll and attrition from migration into cities by the young and healthy, there are not enough healthy people to build infrastructure and markets and raise the standard of living of the rural poor. They already have population control by disease and poverty. They certainly don’t need birth control, sterilization and abortion.
Is the planet overpopulated? No. By all measures of overpopulation, the earth is far from capacity to support its people. Since overpopulation advocates have been scaring us for 200 years, why should be believe what they keep saying? Quit worrying about an assumed problem that has yet to materialize. The real problem is with the population control advocates, the abortionists, the sterilizers and the international governmental and nongovernmental organizations that keep paying these organizations for killing off the hope of the future while keeping people in extreme poverty: poor, sick, isolated, ignorant and controlled. Free market solutions are the answer, not money given to prop up corrupt government officials, which the poor rarely see.
The rural poor in developing countries need disease control, electricity and roads to end isolation. They need Employment, Education, Investment, Infrastructure and Disease Control to join the 21st century. It is possible and you can help.
How can you help? Get involved through charities, investments and campaigning against policies that hurt and oppress the poor. Be an advocate for economic development and against population control.
Posted 5/20/2019 by Kay Kiser on blog www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com
[1] Galton, Francis. “Africa for the Chinese.” The London Times. June 5, 1873
[2] J. Gordon Edwards, “DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 2004. See this report at http://www.jpands.org/vol9no3/edwards.pdf
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All 7.6 E9 people on earth today would stack easily, if somewhat uncomfortably, within half of the Grand Canyon.
Picture that. No human anywhere else on earth.
What ever the real problem is the number 7.6 E9 is not it.
Some one did a graphic image of that (and a YouTube video):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2617559/Fascinating-image-depicts-look-like-7-2-billion-population-dumped-Grand-Canyon.html
The problem is not overpopulation, but rather concentrated population schemes, including immigration reform in lieu of emigration reform.
Those making the most noise about population, never seem willing to adopt the obvious strategy of removing themselves from it.
Those who make the most noise about “the environment” also seem most anxious to condemn the same highly productive agriculture that enables us to feed them without ploughing every arable inch of the earth’s surface.
We should keep rubbing their noses in these contradictions.
I don’t understand, why my comment has been filtered out.
It it already verboten to mention that Darwin wa right, and evolution always goes on?
Re-filling Chad with the Transaqua Project, China is on board, an Italian Project sin the 1960’s, blocked by the EU, is the litmus test for Malthusians. A 2,000km canal from Congo tributaries is on the cards.
Transaqua Moves Forward: Water Transfer Is Not an Option, It Is a Necessity
https://larouchepac.com/20180302/transaqua-moves-forward-water-transfer-not-option-it-necessity
The official outcome of the Feb. 26-28 International Conference on Lake Chad in Abuja, Nigeria is an unequivocal statement of support for the Transaqua project, calling for the transfer of water from the Congo River basin to Lake Chad. It clearly states:
*There is no solution to the shrinking of Lake Chad that does not involve recharging the lake by transfer of water from outside the basin.
*That Inter-basin water transfer is not an option, but a necessity.
*The Transaqua Project, which would take water from the right tributary of River Congo, conveying the water 2,400 kilometers through a channel to Chari River, is the preferred feasible option.
Malthusians of all limp stripes will not like this.
look what happened to libya gaddafi got the water things picked up for his people and then…he got removed, with the hate campaign against china now, Id expect “issues”
not saying gaddafi was wonderful but he did do some good and now hes gone the wars and slavetrading and people dying trying to leave isnt pretty- looks like he was by far the lesser evil.
Muamma Gaddafi was in many ways an ogre and an international terrorist to boot, but the extensive punishment of his people for the sins of their leader was a step too far. He enabled the most extensive irrigation system in the world and his people had access to an excess of good food, modern medicine and education to a high level (for both sexes). Hillary did not like his plans for a gold based pan-African currency, so Libya was bombed back into the middle ages.
China is edging towards an alternative financial system to the US dollar, I understand plans are underway for Hillary to be wheeled out again for 2020, could be interesting.
The issue is not global overpopulation although, of course, there is a limit and that is probable not 11 billion. Less population growth and more balanced and stable age structure would make life easier in many countries and birth rate reduction may still be favorable to wealth and well being,especially in areas where natural resources are under stress and water and food production is insufficient.
Gee, does anyone besides me notice that the CITIES do NOT spread OUTWARD any more? They spread UPWARD now. It’s not just office space. It’s living space. Up NOT Out.
This is very much not true for many many cities in the US.
Two things to consider, which favour a smaller population .
While its true that there is sufficient food overall, its not getting to parts of
the world where it is needed, so unless you can solve that particular problem,
then some curb on population seems to be desirable.
Second, with today’s industry requiring far fewer people, look at both
farming in Western countries, plus automation in industry.
So are we seeing a future where we will have more and more unemployed
people, with unless we also have a very generous social security scheme
operating, will lead to civil disorder and worse.
Then we have a possible cultural problem in that certain cultures, and of
course I am thinking of the Islamic nations, from their point of view the more
people of their culture the better.
I think long term we will have a major problem with water, especially in the
Middle East, and War of course could well occur over such matters.
As for the fact that the population in Western countries is declining, well this
has been occurring for a long time. Its expensive in today’s World to have
children, if you want to give them a western lifestyle, and education, so
couples are deciding to not have children.
Maltha was right in the basics of what he said, when a country, especially in
places like Africa cannot feed itself, then you have a problem. In the western countries such overpopulation is countered by countries exporting
enough goods to be able to buy food. A good example being the UJK.
Anyway if we think that its a good idea to be concerned about other creatures
in this world, then in the name of caring for the environment then we should
reduce the human population. We see this w in parts of Africa where Natural Parks are created for such creatures as the gorilla , only to have the swelling local population moving in.
One obvious way is to assist such countries, mainly Africa, to
industrialise, and that of course means digging up or drilling for lots of
fossil fuel. With a higher standard of living and good government they
would not need large fanalies to look after them as they aged.
MJE VK5ELL
While I put in reference to this entertaining and informative lecture above, here I point out how incorrect is the reference to Islamic nations. Also, while Iran is not mentioned in the lecture, a look at their population and birth rate statistics between the ouster of the Shah and today will also be eye opening.
The problem of distributing food was solved decades ago.
The problem today is the same problem that have plagued poor people for generations.
Corrupt government getting between people and food.
Odd no mention of the 5 or 6 global food consortiums.
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/08/15/companies-that-control-the-worlds-food/2/
Missing there Cargill, Anderson, Tyson and the 4 meat packers.
These firms set prices to below parity when they can. Right now the trade war tariffs are hurting US farming. The CFTC from the Grain Futures Act ended up as a derivative outfit.
All of that gets between produces and consumers.
It really is amazing how much garbage you believe.
So long as either capitalism or the English are the bad guys, you accept it without question.
“The problem of distributing food was solved decades ago.”
Not so, I believe.
A good transportation system is required to do very much. Many if not most places with food shortages don’t have such.
Refrigeration is need, both during transport and for storage at destination or much is lost in little time. Adequate, reliable electrical power is need for r.efrigeration . That also doesn’t exist in to many places.
Insect and rodent proof storage is needed in addition to refrigeration or much food is lost (or ‘shared’ if you are inclined to have that viewpoint). Such storage doesn’t exist in too many places that are short of food.
NOt that there also aren’t political problems and those problems are probably often at least partly responsible for the others.
Once again, you are pointing to the problems that always come with bad government.
Your knowledge of economics is as bad as your knowledge of agriculture.
Automation makes things cheaper. As a result individuals don’t need to work as much in order to earn enough money to buy the things they need.
200 years ago, the average person worked at least 6 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. And they still needed the wife and children to work in order to support the family.
Today, in many homes a single parent, working 40 hours a week can earn enough to support the entire family at a much higher standard of living.
That is 100% the result of this automation that haunts your nightmares.
More automation will result in the same trends continuing.
What happens when the job of that parent, supporting his/her family on a single salary, is automated? When the amount of automation removes the jobs of a majority of the population? Is there a point where automation is counterproductive? Will everyone be working on the design, construction, repair and supervision of automated systems, or will those tasks be automated too?
This is a non problem. It has been shown (several times) in articles on WUWT that when the entire power supply is derived from wind, PV and batteries, the erection, maintenance and decommissioning of these structures will require more than the current workforce.
Then the parent learns another skill.
If we ever did reach the point were every job was automated, then everything would be free. Still not a problem.
There is no point at which there is too much automation.
Charles the moderator,
Please, answer to my question.
Is it already forbidden to say on this forum that, in my opinion, Darwin was right, and evolution always goes on?
Why this comment was dumped?
On balance, if I were the world dictator, I would attempt to ensure that all countries, no matter how poor, have 15 years of schooling for children above the age of 5, and efficient savings/old age pension systems, to eliminate the purely economic motive to have children.
So what is wrong with the malthusian concept? With an increase in population comes an increase in production. Increasing demand for resources should cause them to become more expensive. However technological change defeats this. The cost of a resource is reflected in the amount of time taken to create or extract it, and time is not a resource in short supply in malthusian scenarios. Malthusian predictions are doomed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you all are saying. But that being said, I frankly would not mind fewer people per square kilometer in cities. And that being said, here is my take on the real problem:
Humans seem addicted to population crowding. They pack themselves into Inadequate city spaces, with inadequate clearances to allow for a more aesthetically pleasing spatial existence and experience.
We have to consider habitable space on earth, not just all space on Earth — all space on Earth is not habitable. Who would want to be crammed into the Texas example? Really? You think it’s just about bodies occupying square meters? — it isn’t — it’s about flow of movement within and about the square meters . That Texas example ignores the dynamics of living, … the movement, the visual, the psychological, the reality of supporting infrastructure, utilities, transportation, delivery of services and supplies, etc.
I’m not completely buying the line of argument.
OK, two Texas’s.
If you don’t like living in cities, the solution is easy. Don’t.
It’s such a minor, unrelated thing I hate to say it, but I can’t stop myself.
“By doing so [Hitler] sought to create a super race of Arian Germans.”
An Arian is a type of Christian heretic from the first millennium. An Aryan is what Hitler was looking for.
You may be right, we’re not technically overpopulated, but I would argue that we still have too many people running around here. Yes, maybe we could fit all 7.5 billion people inside Texas- it is a big state. Who would want to? Even in Texas, lots of the land area is not very hospitable for humans to live on. Not without heating and air conditioning and fresh water coming from somewhere else. Even then, ICK!
I don’t know about you and all the others saying we’re fine with 7.5+ people and advocating for even more, but I want to live in a world where we all have the ability to spend time in the wilderness. I want there to be space and natural habitat for ALL of nature, not just humans to use for living space, agriculture, industry, whatever. I want to live in a world where every person has the ability to live a GOOD life. Not just a daily struggle to survive on a couple of dollars/day, but a GOOD life. That means with all the things we take advantage of in the West: good food and plenty of it, good education, transportation, comfortable homes, a choice of meaningful employment, etc, etc, etc.
Too many people right now are living hand to mouth, more people just means more of that. Yes, I agree, plenty of that misery is caused purely by government systems. But until people have the strength to stand up for themselves, you are always going to have corrupt government. Even in the USA, we have plenty of corrupt government. We no longer follow our own Constitution, which provided us with the framework to create more freedom and prosperity than ever seen before on this planet. Yet, we’ve thrown all that in the garbage.
I really do not see why anyone wants to advocate for even MORE people on this planet. Anywhere. We should be limiting our population growth and we should be decreasing it, if for no other reason than that we can ALL enjoy our lives. It seems strange to me that so many want more people, but don’t want to do anything to fix all the problems all those people cause. And YES, they/we do cause problems: pollution, deforestation, destruction of the environment everywhere there are people, loss of species, on and on and on. Even poverty and war can be blamed on the issue of overpopulation. Competition for resources is at the root of most of this.
There is plenty of wilderness out there, and always will be.
Regardless, who do you propose killing so that you can have more wilderness time?
“I really do not see why anyone wants to advocate for even MORE people on this planet. ”
If you examine the criticisms you will see that much of the resistance is to the plans of the people who think they should (or can) control the planet. I’m an oddball here, I realize that the plans some make for the world are unworkable and sometimes heinous, but also believe that nature (or “Nature’s God” in the words of Thomas Jefferson) will have the last word.
Many of the arguments that these population levels are sustainable seem akin to arguments that a mine or mill with accumulations of combustible dust is safe because it hasn’t blown up – yet.
I think that in the end it will be human behavior that is the critical factor, not resources.
I’m with you, Jill. More and more and more and more people is not what I think is the answer.
Kay Kiser is writing from a Catholic anti-contraception and anti-abortion stance. It is therefore understandable that she wants to discredit the idea of over-population. I am not being particularly critical of her stand, indeed her blog and books seem to be strongly anti-racist and anti-eugenics and pro-African development. It’s just that people with strong beliefs tend to pick and chose their evidence and arguments. Watts Up challenges pro-global warmers when they do this, but it’s important to realise that everyone does it, and not just accept an argument at face value because it corresponds with your own beliefs.
World population has been going up exponentially – that’s a fact. Various thinkers have predicted catastrophe by certain dates, and this has not eventuated. This does not mean that human population can keep increasing indefinitely, however many improvements we make in agriculture, food distribution, that’s mathematically impossible. At some stage it has to level out or gradually decline (hopefully without dramatic crashes in local areas due to mass deaths). Lambasting people whose predictions haven’t eventuated (yet), blaming everything on communism, or suggesting the solution is to give more to charity and to lobby against population control is not actually going to help much.
The things you know to be facts, aren’t.
The world population isn’t going up exponentially and hasn’t been for over 100 years.
The growth rate for the world’s total population has been collapsing for the last 100 years. If it weren’t for continued improvements in life expectancy, the total population would be falling already.
Overpopulation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Ask someone who was born in Tokyo what overpopulation is and you will get a different answer than someone from Cheyenne (WY). But, high population densities change their societies. That is why someone can get mugged on the street in New York and no one comes to their aid. There is a direct correlation between crime rates and population density. Japan has an old saying that “The nail that stands out gets hammered down.”
The claim was made that, “… if all the people in the world were placed in an area the size of Texas, each person would have almost 93 square meters.” That is unrealistic! It ignores the infrastructure necessary for people to get to work, and the buildings they need to work in. It ignores the infrastructure necessary to provide food, water, electricity, and to dispose of waste. There is more to life than just living! People need room to recreate. At this late stage, most of the best land is already claimed. You don’t want people living in flood plains, and people don’t want the expense of living in mountainous terrain. The claim was not realistic, and doesn’t adequately address the issues of habitable land.
The peak growth rate was 1955-70, not over 100 years ago. Overall growth rate has declined since 1970, though it remains high in Africa. However the total population number will continue to increase because the absolute population is so big that a smaller rate of increase still has a big cumulative effect.
So yes, world population is no longer increasing exponentially, because the rate isn’t increasing, but it will continue to increase in absolute number.
This will maybe give us breathing space to fix food distribution etc, though we’re on track to reach 10-11 billion before, maybe, it stabilised.
Interesting youtube here from the late Rosling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E
in which he postulates that we are already at “peak child” and that further increase in overall population will be down to extended longevity. He also relates the decline in birth rate to factors which might influence it, such as prosperity. I don’t agree with a lot of what the foundation he represents espouses, but he and his wife did a great deal of fascinating work in this field.
PeterGB
While more people are reaching old age because most childhood diseases have been controlled, there is little to no evidence of “extended longevity.” A woman in Roman North Africa (150 CE) who reached the age of 70 could expect to live longer than a woman of the same age in the US today. It is possible that some breakthrough might be made in curing cancer, but there is little evidence of slow improvement in longevity.
The World Health Organisation (bless their hearts) would beg to differ:
“Global average life expectancy increased by 5.5 years between 2000 and 2016”.
https://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends_text/en/
Life expectancy at all ages has been increasing and is still increasing.
PeterGB:
The key word there is “average”. In the ancient world, if a person reached 50 they would probably live to 90. What we have done is not so much increase the upper limit as decrease infant mortality and childhood deaths due to disease and malnutrition.
Paul of Alexandria
You get it! The others don’t. One needs to look at an actuary table to see how many years one can expect to live for each and every year. Simple averages (such as a global temperature) hides much information.
Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline
by Darrell Bricker & John Ibbitson February 5, 2019
https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Planet-Global-Population-Decline/dp/1984823213
“An award-winning journalist and leading international social researcher make the provocative argument that the global population will soon begin to decline, dramatically reshaping the social, political, and economic landscape
“For half a century, statisticians, pundits, and politicians have warned that a burgeoning population will soon overwhelm the earth’s resources. But a growing number of experts are sounding a different alarm. Rather than continuing to increase exponentially, they argue, the global population is headed for a steep decline—and in many countries, that decline has already begun.
“In Empty Planet, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker find that a smaller global population will bring with it many benefits: fewer workers will command higher wages; the environment will improve; the risk of famine will wane; and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence and autonomy for women.
“But enormous disruption lies ahead, too. We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations and worker shortages weaken the economy and impose crippling demands on healthcare and social security. The United States and Canada are well-positioned to successfully navigate these coming demographic shifts–that is, unless growing isolationism leads us to close ourselves off just as openness becomes more critical to our survival than ever.”
OK. I’ve been on WUWT many years. Until now, I haven’t seen a simple polite comment about Darwin being right, and evolution going on — being removed. It’s an unreasonable censorphip. and I am out of here. Good luck to all good fellows.
I’ve seen many such comments.
Your paranoia and lack of patience are duly noted.
My first commetn appeared almost immediately. Then it was “disappeared,” and appeared again almost six hours later, after I posted a third complaint. Time enough to become paranoid and impatient, don’t you think? Or you don’t think much?
overpopulation ? Absolutely yes : until now , we were able to exploit the ressources to the detriment of other species . Overfishing is at the maximum , so marine birds disappear , in Bornéo, rainforest is destroyed to plant palmtrees , ….. Many species will disappear not because Climate Change , but only because man activity extention due to overpopulation !
It’s quite easy to understand !
“Do we have enough food for everyone? Yes. ..”
Until something disrupts international trade, communications, or transport. A better question would be, how many days of food supply do we have in place in the metropolitan areas of the world? And the answer would be, not enough to survive a month.
“Is there enough room for all the people? ”
Sure, if humans were lab rats and aliens from outer space brought the food and water, their own accommodations and set up and ran the lab.
“Is the environment being harmed by too many people? No. ”
REALLY? So the size of China’s population has no relationship to the toxic pollution of its air, soil, and water supplies? If so, then the US population could grow to the size of China’s without adding any more environmental damage . YES!
STRANGELY LEFT OUT: drinkable water
Toxic pollution happened also in Soviet Union where population density was very low. Socialism results in pollution and starvation. Look at Venezuela’s fate now.
Written like a person who has spent their entire life in a big city and is incapable of imaging life in the real world.
The level of pollution in China is the result of a corrupt government.
Were I a betting man I would wager that a century from today Artificial Intelligence will have made ALL of this discussion irrelevant.
I’ll remember that we are not overpopulated next time I’m stuck on the M25 or in the tube.
The fact that London is over crowded is proof that the entire world is over crowded.
Is that really the argument you want to stick with?
The combined mass of humankind and its associated plant and animal species keeps increasing while the combined mass of the rest of the species keeps decreasing.
Isaac Asimov calculated that with a doubling period of 35 years the total mass of all living organisms on Earth will be made solely by humans by 2430, hence in 1970 he wrote his short story “2430 A.D.” that was later published in the book “Buy Jupiter, and other stories.”
The story was inspired by a quote from J. B. Priestley:
“Between midnight and dawn, when sleep will not come and all the old wounds begin to ache, I often have a nightmare vision of a future world in which there are billions of people, all numbered and registered, with not a gleam of genius anywhere, not an original mind, a rich personality, on the whole packed globe.”
Anybody interested can read it here:
http://library1.org/_ads/528059EC80E83D38F1EBB17388E190CA
every time i see pics of sanger I Cant help thinking SHE would be one of the culled ones if they wanted a tidier gene pool
Absolute proof the world is overpopulated. Check all the famous tourist destinations . Is this really the world y’all want.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/23/everest-traffic-jam-blamed-death-two-climbers/
The fact that in a richer world, more people can afford to go to exotic places proves that the entire world is over crowded.
Really?
Some statistics in the article are misleading. Only a small section of land is “habitable” in terms of the balance between climate, landscape, accessibility which all reflect in basic cost of living.
All civilizations arose where the climate at the time as optimal, trading routes, risks, wars etc. It’s being implied in the article that population could simple be distributed over extremely undesirable and difficult areas. That’s nonsense.
In any case, the various problems caused by dense populations, as predicated, actually came out more often than proven wrong. The developed few always benefited from the cheap pricing of goods and labor elsewhere. This is a system that is simply not scalable, hence the idea of overpopulation, in terms of wealth distribution. Which is of course what is meant with it, according to the more serious claims, and not as much the technical capacity of the planet. Which would be a meaningless number in any case.
While technical solutions created the possibility to add some billions over earlier estimates, the impact on the local environment in those places has had a steep price. Not to mention the ideal incubation tank for diseases.
John Dowser
I would submit that, as with all dynamic systems, there is an optimum population level, which may fluctuate over time. There may be a minimum population such as has been observed with some animals that have become extinct, and there is probably a maximum which results in summing forth one or all of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That may result in the ever diminishing minimum. The optimum population would be resilient to either of the extinction forces. It would allow for coexistence of a natural world and ‘civilization.’ Strangely, I never see an argument for what that optimum might be. The ultra-conservatives say the world is not overpopulated and we could easily feed twice as many as currently inhabit the world. The Greenies talk as if humans are a plague and the Earth would be better off without us. Where is the middle ground?
Land is habitable when people can live there without dying. Period. Outside Antartica and perhaps the deepest parts of the Sahara, all land is habitable. For that matter, much of the oceans are habitable as well.
The world’s environment has improved dramatically, even while the population was going from 3 billion to over 7 billion.