Overpopulation: The Perennial Myth
Dr. Osterfeld is Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana.
“What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the worM, which can hardly support us . . . . In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race.”
This was not written by professional doomsayer Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb, 1968). It is not found in the catastrophist works of Donella and Dennis Meadows (The Limits to Growth, 1972; Beyond the Limits, 1992). Nor did it come from the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State’s pessimistic assessment of the world situation, The Global 2000 Report to the President (1980).
It did not even come from Thomas Malthus, whose Essay on Population (1798) in the late eighteenth century is the seminal work to which much of the modern concern about overpopulation can be traced. And it did not come from Botero, a sixteenth-century Italian whose work anticipated many of the arguments advanced by Malthus two centuries later.
The opening quotation was penned by Tertullian, a resident of the city of Carthage in the second century, when the population of the world was about 190 million, or only three to four percent of what it is today. And the fear of overpopulation did not begin with Tertullian. One finds similar concerns expressed in the writings of Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., as well as in the teachings of Confucius as early as the sixth century B.C.
From the period before Christ, men have been worried about overpopulation. Those concerns have become ever more frenzied. On an almost daily basis we are fed a barrage of stories in the newspapers and on television—complete with such appropriately lurid headlines as “Earth Near the Breaking Point” and “Population Explosion Continues Unabated”—predicting the imminent starvation of millions because population is outstripping the food supply. We regularly hear that because of population growth we are rapidly depleting our resource base with catastrophic consequences looming in our immediate future. We are constantly told that we are running out of living space and that unless something is done, and done immediately, to curb population growth, the world will be covered by a mass of humanity, with people jammed elbow to elbow and condemned to fight for each inch of space.
The catastrophists have been predicting doom and gloom for centuries. Perhaps the single most amazing thing about this perennial exercise is that the catastrophists seem never to have stopped quite long enough to notice that their predictions have never materialized. This probably says more about the catastrophists themselves than anything else. Catastrophism is characterized by intellectual arrogance. It’s been said of Thomas Malthus, for example, that he underestimated everyone’s intelligence but his own. Whenever catastrophists confront a problem for which they cannot imagine a solution, the catastrophists conclude that no one else in the world will be able to think of one either. For example, in Beyond the Limits the Meadows tell us that crop yields, at least in the Western world, have reached their peak. Since the history of agriculture is largely a history of increasing yields per acre, one would be interested in knowing how they arrived at such a significant and counter-historical conclusion. Unfortunately, such information is not forthcoming.
Overpopulation
But isn’t the world overpopulated? Aren’t we headed toward catastrophe? Don’t more people mean less food, fewer resources, a lower standard of living, and less living space for everyone? Let’s look at the data.
As any population graph clearly shows, the world has and is experiencing a population explosion that began in the eighteenth century. Population rose sixfold in the next 200 years. But this explosion was accompanied, and in large part made possible, by a productivity explosion, a resource explosion, a food explosion, an information explosion, a communications explosion, a science explosion, and a medical explosion.
The result was that the sixfold increase in world population was dwarfed by the eighty-fold increase in world output. As real incomes rose, people were able to live healthier lives. Infant mortality rates plummeted and life expectancies soared. According to anthropologists, average life expectancy could never have been less than 20 years or the human race would not have survived. In 1900 the average world life expectancy was about 30 years. In 1993 it is just over 65 years. Nearly 80 percent of the increase in world life expectancy has taken place in just the last 90 years! That is arguably one of the single most astonishing accomplishments in the history of humanity. It is also one of the least noted.
But doesn’t this amazing accomplishment create precisely the overpopulation problem about which the catastrophists have been warning us? The data clearly show that this is not the case. “Overpopulation” cannot stand on its own. It is a relative term. Overpopulation must be overpopulation relative to something, usually food, resources, and living space. The data show that all three variables are, and have been, increasing more rapidly than population.
Food. Food production has outpaced population growth by, on average, one percent per year ever since global food data began being collected in the late 1940s. There is currently enough food to feed everyone in the world. And there is a consensus among experts that global food production could be increased dramatically if needed. The major problem for the developed countries of the world is food surpluses. In the United States, for example, millions of acres of good cropland lie unused each year. Many experts believe that even with no advances in science or technology we currently have the capacity to feed adequately, on a sustainable basis, 40 to 50 billion people, or about eight to ten times the current world population. And we are currently at the dawn of a new agricultural revolution, biotechnology, which has the potential to increase agricultural productivity dramatically.
Where people are hungry, it is because of war (Somalia, Ethiopia) or government policies that, in the name of modernization and industrialization, penalize farmers by taxing them at prohibitive rates (e.g., Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya), not because population is exceeding the natural limits of what the world can support.
Significantly, during the decade of the 1980s, agricultural prices in the United States, in real terms, declined by 38 percent. World prices followed similar trends and today a larger proportion of the world’s people are better fed than at any time in recorded history. In short, food is becoming more abundant.
Resources. Like food, resources have become more abundant over time. Practically all resources, including energy, are cheaper now than ever before. Relative to wages, natural resource prices in the United States in 1990 were only one-half what they were in 1950, and just one-fifth their price in 1900. Prices outside the United States show similar trends.
But how can resources be getting more abundant? Resources are not things that we find in nature. It is ideas that make things resources. If we don’t know how to use something, it is not a resource. Oil is a perfect example. Prior to the 1840s oil was a liability rather than a resource. There was little use for it and it would often seep to the surface and get into the water supply. It was only with the dawn of the machine age that a use was discovered for this “slimy ooze.”
Our knowledge is even more important than the physical substance itself, and this has significant ramifications: More people mean more ideas. There is no reason, therefore, that a growing population must mean declining resource availability. Historically, the opposite has been true. Rapidly growing populations have been accompanied by rapidly declining resource prices as people have discovered new ways to use existing resources as well as uses for previously unused materials.
But an important caveat must be introduced here. For the foregoing to occur, the political and economic institutions must be right. A shortage of a good or service, including a resource, will encourage a search both for additional supplies and for substitutes. But this is so only if those who are successful are able to profit from their effort. This is precisely what classical liberalism, with its emphasis on private property and the free market, accomplishes. A shortage of a particular resource will cause its price to rise, and the lure of profit will attract entrepreneurs anxious to capitalize on the shortage by finding solutions, either additional supplies of the existing material or the development of an entirely new method of supplying the service. Communicating through the use of fiber optics rather than copper cable is a case in point.
Entrepreneurs typically have drawn scientists and others with relevant expertise into the field by paying them to work on the problem. Thus, the market automatically ensures that those most likely to find solutions to a particular problem, such as a shortage of an important resource, are drawn into positions where they can concentrate their efforts on finding solutions to the problem. To cite just a single example, a shortage of ivory for billiard balls in nineteenth-century England led to the invention of celluloid, followed by the entire panoply of plastics.
In the absence of an efficient and reliable way to match up expertise with need, our efforts are random. And in the absence of suitable rewards for satisfying the needs of society, little effort will be forthcoming. It was certainly no accident that the takeoff, both in population growth and economic growth, dates from the decline of mercantilism and extensive government economic regulations in the eighteenth century, and the emergence in the Western world of a relatively free market, characterized by private property, low taxes, and little government interference.
In every category—per capita income, life expectancy, infant mortality, cars, telephones, televisions, radios per person—the performance of the more free market countries far surpasses the more interventionist countries. The differences are far too large as well as systematic to be attributed to mere chance.
Living Space. But even if food and resources are becoming more abundant, certainly this can’t be true for living space. After all, the world is a finite place and the more people in it, the less space there is for everyone. In a statistical sense this is true, of course. But it is also irrelevant. For example, if the entire population of the world were placed in the state of Alaska, every individual would receive nearly 3,500 square feet of space, or about one-half the size of the average American family homestead with front and back yards. Alaska is a big state, but it is a mere one percent of the earth’s land mass. Less than one-half of one percent of the world’s ice-free land area is used for human settlements.
But perhaps “living space” can be measured more meaningfully by looking at such things as the number of houses, the amount of floor space, or the number of rooms per person. There are more houses, more floor space, and more rooms per person than ever before. In short, like both food and resources, living space is, by any meaningful measure, becoming more abundant.
Finally, it should be noted that the population explosion has begun to fizzle. Population growth peaked at 2.1 percent per year in the late 1960s and has declined to its present rate of 1.7 percent. There is no doubt that this trend will continue since, according to the latest information supplied by the World Health Organization, total fertility rates (the number of births per woman) have declined from 4.5 in 1970 tojust 3.3 in 1990. That is exactly fifty percent of the way toward a fertility rate of 2.1 which would eventually bring population growth to a halt.
Everything is not fine. There are many problems in the world. Children are malnourished. But the point that cannot be ignored is that all of the major economic trends are in the right direction. Things are getting better.
Contrary to the constant barrage of doomsday newspaper and television stories, the data clearly show that the prospect of the Malthusian nightmare is growing steadily more remote. The natural limits of what the earth can support are steadily receding, not advancing. Population growth is slowing while the supplies of food, resources, and even living space are increasing. Moreover, World Bank data show that real wages are increasing, which means that people are actually becoming more scarce.
In short, although there are now more people in the world than ever before, by any meaningful measure the world is actually becoming relatively less populated.
Comment by Dan on 11 May 2009:
“In short, although there are now more people in the world than ever before, by any meaningful measure the world is actually becoming relatively less populated.”
And yet, somehow, trees keep falling, large patches of woods keep disappearing, developments keep going up, and traffic keeps getting worse.
I grew up on Eastern Long Island in the 1980s and 90s. I watched vast tracts of woods disappear as more and more houses were built for each person to have their patch of land in the Hamptons. Try finding a vacant lot there now – it’s virtually impossible. Plus the place is completely overcrowded, and prices are through the roof as a result. This is happening all over the country. Also, we might be able to cram the world’s population into a space the size of Alaska, but who the hell wants to have a mere 3500 square feet to oneself? Getting away from humanity and it’s associated noise, getting back to nature and away from one’s neighbors – this is something we should all be at liberty to do.
The only true and guaranteed solution is to work to thin out the herd. We can start by offering a $50,000 cash incentive to all people willing to undergo voluntary, permanent sterilization. On top of that let’s pray for a plague to thin out the herd. Finally, let’s curb research that extends life expectancy.
Comment by sunstar on 11 May 2009:
Dan-
If your $50,000 offer is retroactive and negotiable, I accept.
For you consideration, may I suggest more needless wars and a mass extermination or three as additional effective means by which we could free up more living space for the use of those of us who have earned it?
Comment by 88Keys on 24 May 2009:
So, because Long Island and The Hamptons are now crowded, the entire earth is over-populated? That’s a stretch.
Dan- believe it or not, you are at liberty to get away from everyone and go back to nature. You can MOVE. May I suggest fly-over country, where I live. Lots of space, little polution, and good clean land to live on. Please leave your forced sterilization nonsense in New York.
Comment by Anon on 5 June 2009:
Dan,
Suggestion to thin out the herd – have you considered begining with your own family? Who gets to decide which of the herd is saved and which are slaughtered? Who gives you the right to demand that others be “thinned”? You are obviously not a God-fearing man. Perhaps you should crown yourself King and mandate death sentences like handing out poisoned candy to children. (Pun Intended)
Comment by think_about_it on 2 March 2010:
There is a lot more to it than what those that claim its a myth are taking into consideration. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Sure, you can do the math and figure that if the whole world lived in Texas, each person would have approximately 1200 sq. ft. of land. Take into consideration people need more than just a few hundred square feet to live. How much space do factories, offices, farms, and utility production facilities use? How long will energy production meet ever increasing demand? I’m sure there are some very smart and educated people that can think of a lot more complexities than your anecdotal evidence of large cities and simple calculations are considering.
Comment by Victoria on 4 May 2010:
You've got it mixed up–population explosion wasn't what made the medical/scientific/industrial revolutions happen–the medical revolution made the population explosion happen because people have better health care.
And have you ever considered the rate at which many developing nations are producing? Niger-7.75 children per woman, they've over quadrupled themselves in the past 50 years and are predicted to do so again in the next 50 years, which will prevent them from EVER developing, as it would put a strain on the environment, economy and social services. The female literacy rate in that country is less than 15% and most people are hungry. Do you think that they can support such a fast-growing population?
Oh, and for all the religious people–have you ever noticed that the southern US., which is proven to be more religious, is also the poorest? The Islamic world lives 30-40% in poverty, and the Catholic Latin American world also has a lot of poverty. So does God really prvide sustenance for all, as the Quran likes to say?
If developing nations do become developed, can you imagine the rate of consumption world-wide?
Pingback by The Earth is NOT overpopulated! - Page 3 - Political Forum on 3 July 2010:
[...] Please read this article for a more in depth discussion of why overpopulation is over-hyped: Overpopulation: The Perennial Myth. An excerpt: [...]
Pingback by Le mythe de la surpopulation | Contrepoints on 14 October 2010:
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Comment by Fiver on 20 October 2010:
Dan, the problems you encounter in Long Island aren’t so much the fruit of “Overpopulation” as they are of Urbanization and plain old selfishness. I must agree with Anon, your incredibly caloused, small-minded ‘solution’ ought to begin with people who entertain such thoughts, let alone propose them. There is a reason extermination is called evil. Because that’s what it is. If you’re not quite so willing to do away with yourself, then don’t ask anyone else to. Perhaps instead of hoarding goods to please yourself you might wake-up and find something positive to contribute to your community.
think_about_it, may I suggest that the author’s space-calculations were primarily to make the point that the entire population could fit into less space than it does now? There are brilliant geniouses who specialize in transforming smaller spaces into profitable work area. The Chinese have become leaders in this. Life’s about cooperation, not annihilation. And the reference was only to land-mass. We’ve barely begun exploring the widths and depths of the oceans, underground living, vertical structures… There are many plausable and adventurous solutions without having to refer to slaughtering innocents. Chinampas? Vertical Farming? Permaculture? Please look for realistic alternatives.
Victoria, you’re wrong about Niger. With more children, there is more potential for cooperative solution-finding and sharing work-loads, not to mention pooling creativity and knowledge. If there are any impediments, it’s not likely got much to do with numbers of people, maybe just the number of restrictive laws and unjust practices.
Oh, and about “religious people”… It so happens that religion often teaches such virtues as sharing, compassion, justice, and frugality. Many problems are usually stemmed in greed and calousness.
Oh, and for the record, “non-religious” people have a heck of a track record so far when it comes to solutions, natural resources etc: 162 000 000 innocent civilians have been slaughtered IN THE LAST CENTURY by atheistic regimes (more than all the wars of history combined), not to mention the collapsed economies and horrid environmental catastrophies that accompanied them (chernobyl?). It would appear that a repugnance for virtue and faith has wreaked more havoc than religion itself.
There are many intelligent people with brilliant solutions, there is absolutely no need to talk about killing people off or promoting selective birth controls. How we can even consider the same things fought against in WWII is beyond me, but I suppose I oughtn’t be surprised, some people have always demonstrated a willingness to end human life just to satisfy their desire to have everything to themselves. Remeber Cain and Abel? At this point I don’t care if you take it literally or allegorically, but there weren’t many people on the planet, and one still killed the other. We haven’t gotten better.
Stop talking about killing each other or letting people die. Help others as much as you can and they’ll help you when you need it. Do the opposite and history will repeat itself.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 20 October 2010:
Fiver,
“With more children, there is more potential for cooperative solution-finding and sharing work-loads, not to mention pooling creativity and knowledge. If there are any impediments, it’s not likely got much to do with numbers of people, maybe just the number of restrictive laws and unjust practices.”
The thing the author and you are ignoring and Victoria points out and you minimized is that population is not a function of land area, it is a function of the ability of the infrastructure to support the population that relies on it. you can’t put everyone in Alaska because there aren’t enough roads, hospitals, schools, farms, markets, factories, jobs, banks, etc. in Alaska to support six billion people regardless of how much property is theoretically available for habitation.
Population needs to keep pace with infrastructure or you end up with ingnorance and poverty. Latin America, India, and Africa demonstrate this clearly and this is further supported by examining what has happened in the “First World” as we have tried to absorb the ever increasing masses produced by the “Third World.” Europe and the US are staggering under the burden of imported ignorance and poverty. They can’t “cooperate in solution finding” because they lack the tools to understand the problem much less invent a solution. Most end up in unskilled positions in fast food, resturants, landscaping, and similar positions displacing young adults attempting to enter the work force and gain job experience. Flipping burgers at McDonalds is supposed to be the first rung on the employment ladder, not a lifetime career.
This planet may well be able to sustain a much larger human population than it currently does, but at this point our infrastructure can’t support these numbers at current reproductive rates. As it stands we’re not helping them up; they’re dragging us down.
Comment by Fiver on 22 October 2010:
James Madison Fan,
I respectfully agree with your assertion that the current infrastructure is loaded, even stressed in some areas. The answer? We could kill others off and keep the spoils for ourselves. But, you may recall, most people don’t like being killed-off. If you try this, or even simlpy let them die off, you’ll likely see an increase in terrorist attacks. Wars. This won’t help the situation.
The alternative is, of course, to adapt our infrastructure to population growth. Don’t think it’s doable? While trillions of dollars are being spent on war machines, “family planning”, relatively fruitless space exploration and climate-scare, developing systems and technologies capable of better supporting a growing population are neglected, if not discouraged.
And if you believe that indigenous peoples have nothing to contribute to civilization, you’ve probably never met any. They’re quite human, quite creative, and far more intelligent than you can imagine, though their I.Q. may not register high by modern academic standards, but that’s mainly because I.Q. tests rely on academic knowledge. Not aquired knowledge. In this case, are you saying the slaughter of American Indians, the slavery of Africans and the subjugation of Asians is suddenly acceptable?
If you have an open, flexible mind, you’ll recognize the potential for every human being to contribute to his or her community, and his or her right to exist.
If not, please, at least have the decency to wear your swastika on your arm.
Comment by Rosalie on 25 October 2010:
I think it is clear to say that the population of the world has greatly increased through out the centuries. But the fact of the matter is that underdevloped countries are the ones greatly contributing to the increase in population. Europeans are having fewer and fewer children each year. In Italy for example, they tax single males with no children more heavily. Whereas, in China, they tax families that have more than 2 children. The issue is geographical and social. In order for us to solve this problem, we need to understand the factors surrouding each specific country. One size does not fit all. In understanding that many of these underdeveloped countries have low literacy rates, little to none medical care, and are self-sufficient, then you might understand why they have as many children as they do. For example, a family that does not understand how a child is concieved, or the nourishment needed for a child to live past infancy, will continue to have children until her body stops her from doing so. And think about it, if these families are self-sufficient, as in the case of many African countries, they will need more children to work and cultivate their farms, tend to their flocks, watch the children and so on. Essentially, they are living in the “Dark Ages”. And anyone who knows History knows that the only way to get out of this period is to read and write. Knowledge is power, and unfortunately many of these underdeveloped countries cannot see the benefit of this because their government does not make it an option for them. History has shown that a developed country allows for its population to focus on more intellectual, scientific, and artistic achievements. If they are stuck in the “Dark Ages” the only way for them to get out of it is to be reintroduced or introduced to new ways of thinking and living — but their government has to be willing to help. Many of these third world countries are indebted financially to developed countries and the propsect of ever coming out seems slim. Therefore it could be argued that developed countries or the IMF had allowed these underdeveloped countries to remain underdeveloped.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 28 October 2010:
Fiver,
1. “The answer? We could kill others off and keep the spoils for ourselves.”
Reducto Ad Absurdum fallacy/False Dichotomy fallacy #1: There are other ways to control population growth besides homicide such as contraceptives and sex education. In fact these tactics have been too effective in some cases.
Ad Hominem fallacy #1: Opposing excessive population growth does not mean the person is homicidal.
2. “But, you may recall, most people don’t like being killed-off. If you try this, or even simlpy let them die off, you’ll likely see an increase in terrorist attacks. If you try this, or even [simply] let them die off, you’ll likely see an increase in terrorist attacks. Wars”
Strawman fallacy #1: This is not the argument I made. Reducing the number of children per household (CPH) of a group to manageable levels is not the same as killing off a group or letting them die off. In fact, the reverse is true. It elevates their standard of living as well as that of their children.
Argument to Adverse Consequences fallacy/Appeal to Force fallacies: Just because a group that is threatening the well being of another group might resort to terrorism or open war does not mean we should yield to these tactics.
3. “The alternative is, of course, to adapt our infrastructure to population growth.”
False Dichotomy fallacy #1 revisited: This is not the only alternative.
4. “While trillions of dollars are being spent on war machines, “family planning”, relatively fruitless space exploration and climate-scare, developing systems and technologies capable of better supporting a growing population are neglected, if not discouraged.”
False Dichotomy #2: Spending money on Wars, family planning, space exploration and climate research does not preclude spending money on infrastructure. In many cases it makes the money spent on infrastructure more efficient.
False Dichotomy #3: We owe people the right to reproduce at any rate they choose to the exclusion of investing in any other endeavor.
Error of Fact fallacy #1: The “relatively fruitless Space Program” has resulted in technological advancements that range from freeze drying foods to waste water recycling technologies to meteorology to communications to geology to oil exploration to the Teflon used in the frying pan to the computer we’re both using to have this debate. Just about every life monitoring machine you find in the ER owes its development to the Apollo program. The effects of a relatively minor investment in the 60’s have been paying dividends that have allowed the US to remain the center of a global technological explosion that has never been seen in the history of the planet. We will continue to reap these rewards long into the future in ways that can be easily predicted such as mining the asteroid belt and terraforming Mars and possibly Venus to other advancements neither of us can even begin to imagine.
Error of Fact #2: Providing adequate food and water has received more attention than any other endeavors in human history, including the eradication of disease. This resulted in inventions that range from agriculture to irrigation to aqueducts to fertilization to animal husbandry to genetic manipulation. Most of US infrastructure and land use is dedicated to food and water production and distribution.
The “Green Revolution” in India between the 1940’s and 1970’s allowed it to sustain more than quadruple the number of people it had trouble feeding in the 1930’s. This included the development of short grained rice and other grains that were better able to tolerate the monsoonal rains.
5: “And if you believe that indigenous peoples have nothing to contribute to civilization, you’ve probably never met any. Not [acquired] knowledge.”
Strawman #2: I never mentioned the utility of indigenous people.
Ad Hominem #2: Opposing explosive population growth is not a racial issue. It doesn’t’ matter if you are White, Brown, Black, Yellow, Red, or Green-with-Purple-Polka-Dots your standard of living will be eroded if you allow population growth to exceed infrastructure.
.
6. “They’re quite human, quite creative, and far more intelligent than you can imagine, though their I.Q. may not register high by modern academic standards, but that’s mainly because I.Q. tests rely on academic knowledge.”
Ad Hominem #2 revisited: Race is irrelevant. My argument does not stand on the concept of racial superiority or inferiority.
Academic knowledge is a function of infrastructure (education) so this portion of your argument supports my point.
7. “In this case, are you saying the slaughter of American Indians, the slavery of Africans and the subjugation of Asians is suddenly acceptable?”
Strawman #3: I am not advocating pogroms, slavery, or subjugation. I am advocating controlled birth rates that do not exceed the growth of infrastructure. This can be done without any of the process you offer.
False Dichotomy #1 revisited: These are not the only solutions.
Ad Hominem #2 revisited: Race is irrelevant.
8. “If you have an open, flexible mind, you’ll recognize the potential for every human being to contribute to his or her community, and his or her right to exist.”
Strawman #4: I have never argued against racial equality. I’ve argued against excessive population.
Ad Hominem#2 revisited: Race is irrelevant.
9. “If not, please, at least have the decency to wear your swastika on your arm.”
Ad Hominem #2 revisited: Race is irrelevant. I’m sorry Fiver but not everyone that disagrees with you is a racist.
Factual Error #3: The swastika dates back to the Neolithic period and was used by Hindus, Buddhists, and other groups besides the NAZI’s. You might as well be offering that all terrorists wear turbans and burqas.
[On a personal note my ex-wife was something like 1/8th Cherokee so that means my daughter is 1/16th “Indigenous Peoples” and even at age 5 she’s smarter than most of the people that post on here so you look pretty silly from this side of the screen.]
Your argument is broken. Get a new one.
Comment by Kutabare on 21 February 2011:
James Madison Fan, get your facts right
the swastica as used by the Nazi’s looks like this 卐 and the Indian peace symbol looks like this 卍
Facist=卐
Peace=卍
Pingback by » Observations: Typical Eugenicist Programming IRON PLUMS on 14 June 2011:
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Comment by khalilur Rahman on 20 February 2012:
First of all i do appreciate the author for such a innovative wrtie-up. Innovative in the sense in an age of anti-growth the author showed courage (of course adducing facts) to advocate for pro-growth. I have been in the family planning program for over 3 decades supporting Malthusian principle of population growth outplays economic growth. Now my realization is that i was mistaken if not fully at least partially because i have not yet been satisfied with the definition of the term “OVERPOPULATION”; i am not convinced that poverty is rooted in the so-called exponential growth of population. If that is correct then why there is poverty even in the USA, OK and aboveall billions live with $1.25? Take the case of Bangladesh. We were 75 million in 1971 and more than half of our population were poor then. Now we are 160 million our average life expectancy is over 60 years which was about 45 in 1971 with 75 million. Food, resources space to live are not very limited but there is scarcity but few are occupying the bulk. The world is now termed as a global village and in that sense we are huts in one end of the village from Sanfransisco to Tokyo and can claim space to live any where. Inequality, selfish/nasty/brutish governance, injustice and privileged class who are cleverly protected by their counterparts are all the root cause of want, hunger, malnourishment, illiteracy. Minority rules everywhere democracy works in paper only; vote is defeated by veto. There should be a international forum to voice against all these privileged democracy. Let say people cannot be blamed for their fertility behavior people should be freed from their subjugation by the clever governments across the world. UNO has failed; now is the time form a UPO- United peoples Organization from all the 196 countries, territories and regions by non-political elements.
Comment by John Zube on 21 February 2012:
There is, obviously, no overpopulation while the food suppliers still complain about lack of buyers. Their customers are insufficiently supplied with sound currency – because they cannot earn any sound currency, which is outlawed in favour of an unsound and forced monopoly currency. Under this monetary despotism, made worse by financial despotism, consisting in xyz tax tribute levies, they cannot earn enough of this monopoly money, after taxes, to buy all the food and other consumer requirements they need or want. They need not food but monetary and financial freedom and free enterprise and free trade and, generally, free exchange, to be able to sell their goods, services and labour, untaxed and unregulated, for sound competing currencies, at free market prices, using the value standards that would survive in free competition between all kinds of value standards. THEN they could buy enough wanted or needed consumer goods and e.g. the sellers of wanted food would no longer be short of customers. Even where some economic freedom does exist already, although still only fractionally, the prevailing complaint is obesity and there is a boom for all kinds of slimming services and products. There, too, are protectionist barriers against the imports of cheap foods. Moreover, food producers get also other price supports, because they their returns from the sale of foods to those relatively few customers supplied with the government’s monopoly money are too small. The percentage of people required to produce enough food for the present population is becoming smaller and smaller due to agricultural science and technology. Not more food and more food producers are required or still higher agricultural productivity but freedom to to exchange goods, services and labor – without the “assistance” or protection of any territorial government. That freedom includes also freedom to migrate, which even our primitive ancestors enjoyed.
Comment by Anonymous on 23 March 2012:
The problem is and isn’t to many people, as you have heard in Overpopulation: The Perennial Myth that our population increase 6 fold and was dwarfed by food production increasing 8 fold since the eighteenth century while you know what dwarfs food production in and exponential increase? Plant and animal extinction rates they haven’t been this high since an asteroid impact at the end of the cretaceous period. Why there going extinct? People, from destroying rainforests to ever expanding metropolis’s pushing them into new habitat they can’t survive in an estimated 1.3 million species of plants and animals have gone extinct since the 16th century. We could probably hit 11 billion people on earth who knows but it will only cost us ever other living thing on the planet that isn’t in a farm or as a pet or in a preserve.
Comment by GRS on 31 March 2012:
I have to say I honestly don’t know who or what to believe these days. When I hear about over-population I don’t just think of humans and if there is enough for us, I also think of EVERY living creature, plant and animal, that has a right to live on the earth and in the oceans.
I think there is a lot of fear that is spread because some people out there want us to believe in scarcity and that increases prices. On that same note I think some humans, like those of us in the U.S., over consume! I think what bothers me the most is the way we waste everything – we’re a throw away society and that is the REAL crime.
Comment by David Murphy on 11 April 2012:
Zube, et all,
“There is, obviously, no overpopulation while the food suppliers still complain about lack of buyers.”
The competency of the United States’ agricultural machine to produce food says nothing about about our overpopulation. I’m sure, even when We have turned our soil to sand and half the ocean into a dead-zone, we will still somehow do an excellent job at engineering our world to perpetuate our unsustainable lifestyles.
We are not as likely to see gradual degradation of our planet and humankind as we are to suddenly hit a threshold. The “Taker Thunderbolt” example, I think, needs to be understood. We cannot sustain Infinite growth on a finite planet. Why can’t people just get their head around that?
Comment by #winning on 21 April 2012:
Let’s say those who do not fear this “problem” of overpopulation. If you blindly think that we will continue to be able to grow more and use resources better and can uphold growing population I am more than willing to let you have that side of the arguement. Please look at graphs of world population. Look at the slope, we have been growing in populatio at MORE than an exponential rate. So I will flatter you and say yes, there will be many smart people that can help to solve these upcoming problems. In ~61 years at our current growth rate the population will double. More than 14 billion individuals. Another 61 years. . . 28 billion. ~300 years we are getting pretty close to 896 billion people. It keeps getting higher if unresolved. There is limited energy. It will come to the point when water will have to be desalinated for everyone to get water. This means energy. There are limits to what we have here. There is only so much Hydrogen and Oxygen on the planet. So anyone who thinks we can keep reproducing let me know which genius of the future billions to be created will figure out how many people can even be constructed (finding an average amount of H20 in a person’s body) from the limited source of those two elements on this planet. An I’m sure while they are doing that there won’t be any worries about food or sanitation because all of the other smart people will just take care of it. There is a difference between dumb and ignorant. The dumb may not have the capacity but the ignorant simply put all of the responsibility for their selfish actions on the shoulders of the smart. And when the opinions and suggestions of the scientists that they want to use become different from their own they are ignored.
Comment by Fred on 25 May 2012:
People just need to stop fucking.
Comment by Todd on 27 May 2012:
Well, homosexuality is one of the natural solutions whether brought on by environmental conditioning or an inherent trait, that curbs population growth. No, I am not suggesting its advocacy or denouncing it, merely acknowledging a factaul reality.