Talk:Human overpopulation

Conclusions vs Facts and Statistics

Article suffers from too many contradictory conclusions, some unrelated to overpopulation, and too few statistics.

It is missing a table of population increase by country and continent, and of population density per square KM and per square KM of arable land.

The article should relate to regional overpopulation and not just world overpopulation. There is not the same population pressure in Russia or Germany as in Bangladesh or Egypt, and it makes no sense to treat them all the same! In some places birthrates are below replacement levels. They are not contributing to world overpopulation obviously.

The depletion of fossil fuel and other resources is due primarily to developed industrial countries, but these do not have high population growth. Therefore the problem is not directly related and doesn't belong in this article - except perhaps to be mentioned. Controlling population in USA and Europe has not reduced use of fossil fuels and ecological resources!

There should be a more systematic treatment of the worldwide decline in birthrate - a table at least by continent or region if not by country.

The prediction of world food catastrophes seem to be belied by the chart that clearly shows that world food supply per capita is increasing.

Hidden in all the contradictory conclusions, partial statistics and irrelevant discussions of resource depletion in developed nations is the fact that over population and too rapid population increase is a regional problem and not (as yet) a world problem - it is a local problem. The two types of issues should be separated. [[[User:Mewnews|Mewnews]] (talk) 12:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)]

When communists cause famine, they wrongly blame it on overpopulation, OR spinning the issue

Blaming famine on overpopulation doesn't make any sense. Just compare South Korea to North Korea - they have similar population densities and similar natural resources. But capitalist South Korea is well fed while communist North Korea has famine. Ethiopia and Zimbabwe used to be self sufficient in food production, but then they nationalized the farmland and that created a famine. After China nationalzied its farmland it created a famine, and after it switched back to private farming the famine disappeared. Blaming famine on overpopulation is not logical.

Let's say you have a poor communist country where private farming for profit is illegal and everyone is starving. Well, then cutting the population in half won't solve any problems. Because overpopulation is not the problem. The problem is communism.

Tell it to the Irish. Renglish (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Overgrazing and deforestation happen because of a lack of property rights. When a resource is communally owned, people overuse the resource and no one takes care of it. When people have secure property rights, they take care of the resource. The owners of private tree farms plant more trees than they cut down.

In a free market, resource scarcity leads to higher prices. This leads to conservation, substitution, and new supplies.

Free people create more resources than they consume. Before the 19th century, pretroleum had no value - it was a nuiseance that got in the way of people who were digging water wells. It was only after someone with a brain invented a way to use the petroleum that it acquired any value. Today's trillion dollar silicon revolution is based on a rock that's found everywhere. A "natural resource" has no value on its own. It's only when people use their brains to invent things that the "natural resource" acquires any value.

Our most valuable resource is information, and this is a resource that can only get bigger.

The doomsayers do not understand this. They do not understand science, technology, innovation, private property, or the function of prices. That's why they wrongly blame problems on overpopulation, and continue to make false predictions about running out of resources.

Private property, economic freedom, market prices, modern agriculature, tree farming, nuclear power, and desalination can provide a first world standard of living for 10 billion people. The only reason that any country has third world poverty or famine is because they choose to avoid these things.

--grundle2600

Good point. In reality, "overpopulation" or high population density hardly ever causes famine on a national scale. In many (if not most) cases, the actual cause of food shortages (or shortages of many other resources) can be traced to bad governance. This is the point made and proven by economists like Julian Simon. Unfortunately, this article continues to remain very biased in fabvor of the "overpopulation" doomsayers. Manny Amador

Thank you! Grundle2600 20:40, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, whenever I hear one of these economic spinmeisters make these claims I have to wonder where their heads are at. Ok so you say 10 billion people is a good number. Any limiting before that number would be wrong. So are you saying that 10 billion is the point at which we try to get ahold of population growth? No? What about 15 billion then? 20 billion? 50 billion? 100 billion? What, NO limits? Yes, that's what it usually comes down to. These people who specialize in turning black into white have really only one issue, money. Their economic system is set up in such a way that growth must ever increase else the whole thing may collapse - or so they fear. They don't mention a few inconvienient facts: 1) Capitalist countries are rich in large measure because they are exploiting (read here: sucking up) the resources of the rest of the world, in other words, they are not self sufficient. If they were forced to be their smug self-congratulatoryness would soon evaporate. 2) These capitalist countries use measures such as funding policies at the IMF and the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (all capitalist institutions) to make it difficult for third world countries to themselves become self sufficient. These policies rather make third world countries forever dependant upon first world nations, some say by design [1][2]. 3) Besides this, the reality is that for other reasons third world countries may never reach the level of economic independence of first world countries, thus advocating increased population growth is advocating much more misery and death in these countries. 4) Sure there are still plenty of some resources to go around but what gives us the right to harvest everything for just our generation? How wise is that? Do you hope that when the population is 50,000,000,000 and forests are a thing of the past we'll just magically have created big carbon dioxide recycling and oxygen producing machines to replace them? It is the height of folly to urge human population to grow and grow when projected scarcities of other basic necessities, such as water, are well understood. And what gives us the right to turn a beautiful planet into one big city and thus deny our children and children's children the opportunity to experience a natural earth? And while we're at it, what gives us the right to confiscate all of the living spaces and resources of earth from the other 99.999999999% of species that also live and evolved here, to selfishly take all for ourselves without a thought for those which cannot speak for themselves?

How long do you believe that people will buy the non-scensical idea that, on a finite world with finite resources we can continue to grow and expand forever?

Ok so there should be a limit then? SO then WHEN? As a previously deleted paragraph once stated, there are Quality of life issues to consider here. Just because we have space left in which to put more people, more cities, more roads, reap more pollution etc. do we want to? Is the goal to see just how many people we can cram into a given space with no thought to any limit? If we do plan to eventually limit population do we wait until quality of life is so degraded that it's no longer worth bothering with or do we try to limit population while we still have something worthwhile to save? 4.246.202.198 18:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

'The reference should read that famine may be symptomatic of overpopulation. Clearly for a given level of resource exploitation there is a corresponding level of population that can be sustained indefinitely by the local resource base---carrying capacity. Assuming that an equilibrium has been reach resulting in sustainability, any decline in technology, ability to exploit local resources, including political or organizational mismanagement will result in a higher carrying capacity. Similarly any increase in the per capita exploitation, improvements in technology, leads to a lower carrying capacity.'

It's a fairly straight forward balanced equation. You need to lay off the Adam Smith for a bit Grundle2600 and focus a little more on the math. Modern economic theory is the only system, natural or otherwise, that I have ever come across that assumes perpetual growth, indeed requires perpetual growth to thrive. All other systems eventually reach equilibrium, but not capitalism! And since the success of capitalism, by far the most efficient of all the isms at resource extraction and distribution is inextricably linked to our exponential population growth, we must seriously question the exponential foundation of this system. It is your blind faith in the 'Invisible Hand' and those so well entrenched, and benefiting the most, in the system that have gotten us to this miserable point.

Nor should you confuse the 'success' or rather dominance of capitalism today, with an optimal socio-economic model that is sustainable. Capitalism is the current winner simply by default. Capitalism does not create resources where non existed, it simply encourages technological development which allows the exploitation of resources on a larger scale and at fast rates. This in turn has lead to population growth likely well beyond carrying capacity, a temporary phenomenon as we are all about to find out, frequently referred to as overshoot. With almost every major ecological system on the globe in decline (boreal forest, coral reefs, fisheries, tropical rain forest, etc., etc.) the malaise of overpopulation should be intuitive. It is irresponsible of you to embed in your arguments and perpetuate a likely falsehood that capitalism and free markets based on perpetual exponential growth are an optimal socio-economic system. Nobody knows that for sure, but I expect that we will find out in the 21st century regardless. Those of us looking forward and questioning the foundations of this system suspect that it is not, and as a consequence are concern with overpopulation and its implications. More math, more thermodynamics and less b-school is my suggestion to you Grundle2600. And until then you should probably reframe from commentary on this topic and likely many others.

You didn't address any of my specific claims about communists causing famine. 10 years ago, farmers in Zimbabwe were growing huge amounts of food. The country was well fed, and grew enough extra food to export it to other countreis. But then President Robert Mugabe seized the farms, and kicked the farmers out of the country. That caused a famine. The same thing happened in Ethiopia a few decades earlier. China also had famine after it nationalized its farmland. After China went back to private farming, food production skyrocketed, and the famine disappeared. Today communist North Korea has famine, and capitalist South Korea is well fed.

The IMF and World Bank should be abolished. They are governemnt agencies. They are not capitalist.

You are mistaken in your claim that third wolrd countries can't become rich. Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Tiawan all used to be third world countries. But then they adopted capitalism, and became rich.

You are mistaken in your claim that there aren't enough resources. The truth is that people create more resources than they use. For example, oil was not a resource until someone with a brain invented a way to use it. Today's trilion dollar silicon revoltion is based on something that's in rocks everywhere. The most important resource is information, and this is a resources that can only get bigger.

With modern argiculture, nuclear power, desalination, tree farming, science and technology, and electric cars like the Tesla Roadster it's possible for 10 billion people to all have a first world standard of living.

You are mistaken to claim that rich countries get rich by making poor countries poor. The truth is that every country starts out poor. When countries adopt capitalism, they create wealth, and they become rich.

When poor countries trade with rich countries, it makes the poor countries better off. That's how Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea became rich. And now today, China, India, and Vietnam are getting richer by trading with rich countries. Voluntary trade is a win-win situation, and it makes all participants better off.

Human beings create more resources than they use. Today the world has more people than ever before. And today, the average person in the world eats more calories of food, has more square footage of housing, has a longer life expectancy, has more access to health and education, and owns more material possessions, than ever before.

What's the maximum number of people that the earth can support? That depends on what level of technology we use. During the hunter/gatherer phase, the earth could only support 50 million poeple. Today with agriculture, it's more than 100 times that amount. And if every country used all the technologies that I mentioned, it could be much higher than that.

But the population will never get that big. The United Nations estimates that world population will peak at about 9 billion around the year 2050 or so, and then start to fall.

Which resources do you think we don't have enough of, that we can't solve the problem with technologies like modern agriculture, desalination, nuclear power, and electric cars?

Do you even know what Prsident Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe? He stole the farmland, and kicked the farmers out of the country. That caused a famine. How can you blame that on overpopulation?

North Korea and South Korea have similar population densities and similar natural resources. North Korea has famine, and South Korea does not. How can you blame North Korea's famine on overpopulation?

When countries become rich, they use governemnt regulation and technology to make their pollution go down. The U.S. population is much bigger today than 40 years, but pollution is much lower today.

Rich countries use modern agriculture to grow more food on less land, so they have more forest, not less.

I am totally in favor of people having access to safe and legal sex education, birth control, and abortion. But none of those things is going to solve the problems that are caused by communsit dictators like Robert Mugabe.

Grundle2600 23:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Your comments reflect an uncareful reading of the article, the links therein and my comments above and provided links. Take desalination for example. Did you read the water section? Did you note the study that concluded "Desalinated water may be a solution for some water-stress regions, but not for places that are poor, deep in the interior of a continent, or at high elevation. Unfortunately, that includes some of the places with biggest water problems"? I guess not. Thus you're mistaken.

I've no doubt communism has caused famines. They are not too environmental either [3].

I didn't say that third world countries can't become rich, I said that "for other reasons third world countries may never reach the level of economic independence of first world countries". Thus you are mistaken.

You said "You are mistaken in your claim that there aren't enough resources". Again, what I said was, "Sure there are still plenty of some resources to go around but what gives us the right to harvest everything for just our generation?" Thus you are mistaken. There's no doubt that for the short term we can go on business as usual, but to imagine that we can continue to grow and expand forever while taking the resources from the same finite planet is ridiculous. It's "magical" thinking.

You said "Rich countries use modern agriculture to grow more food on less land, so they have more forest, not less". Again, did you read this comment from the article, "Agricultural conversion to croplands and managed pastures has affected some 3.3 billion [hectares]—roughly 26 percent of the land area. All totaled, agriculture has displaced one-third of temperate and tropical forests and one-quarter of natural grasslands". I guess not. Again you're mistaken.

You also said "But the population will never get that big". Are you a prophet? No? Then you cannot say. But if you understood the concept of carrying capacity you'd know that some respected scientists hold that population continues to rise if the resources are availiable [4] (this information is cited in the article BTW). Now, you've stated that we've plenty of resources left. So then look for population to rise until they run out ... unless we consciously decide to do the mature, no the sane thing and limit our population growth rate.

Finally you said "But none of those things is going to solve the problems that are caused by communsit dictators like Robert Mugabe." I never said they were.

You sound like you're putting a lot of faith in technology, even willing to gamble the future for a big payoff right now. I happen to consider that foolhardy.

I also note that You didn't address any of the moral issues I raised about taking everything for ourselves. 4.246.200.243 06:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have forgotten that one does not need to be a prophet to make reasonably accurate predictions. If you disagree,t hen you contradict ANY prediction of the consequences of overpopulation. Grundle's claim that the world's population will never get big enough to outstrip resources is not his own, but made by the UN Population Division, which has far more data and analytical resources than you. The earth's resources may be theoretically finite, but given the productivity of human beings and consumption patterns (even high ones), the resources may as well be infinite. This has been echoed by many respected writers such as Julian Simon and Jacqueline Kasun. This is not some misplaced faith in technology, it is rather a simple recognition of historical fact (which, by the way, has repeated itself many times). 58.71.34.138 14:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Julian Simon? Sheesh! I give up. Believe what you'd like. 4.246.206.53 15:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Julian Simon was right - Paul Ehrlich's prediction of 90% of the U.S. population starving to death at the end of the 20th century did not come true. Why do you think Ehrlich was right?Grundle2600 15:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Grundle is correct. If you Julian Simon isn't credible, then kindly show us why he should not be seen as credible. He won his wager against Ehrlich, and Ehrlich has made so so many wacky doomsday predictions that never came true one wonders why he hasn't been committed. Just because you don't like What Simon has to say doesn't mean he's wrong. You have to substantiate your unlikely claim. It's more likely the other way around: that you are wrong and Julian Simon (who has substantiated his claims) is right.58.71.34.138 11:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I find it quite hilarious that the people who attack Simon never criticize Ehrlich. Ehrlich said that by the year 2000, 90% of the U.S. population would starve to death, all the world's resources would be gone, and India would never eliminate its famine. Simon correctly pointed out that Ehrlich was wrong. Yet the doomsayers attack Simon. And they give praise to Ehrlich, and they invite him to give speeches, they give him various awards and 6 figure grants, etc. They attack Simon for being right, and they love Ehrlich for being wrong. It just doesn't make any sense. Grundle2600 18:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

My basic claim is that human beings create more resources then they use. We aren't "taking" things - we are creating them.

Throughout most of history, oil was not a resource. On the contrary, it had negative value, because it was a nuisance that got in the way of people who were digging water wells. It was only when a person with a brain figured out a way to use the oil that the oil became a resource.

During the 17th century, people worried about the world's supply of candle wax running out. It never occurred to them that someday, someone would invent the light bulb.

We used to use copper wires to carry telephone signals. But today we use fiber optics. Compared to the copper wires, the fiber optics use less material, but carry more informaiton.

50 years ago, a computer was as big as a house. Today, a computer fits on your desk, and it's a million times more powerful.

Today's silicon revolution is based on a material that's found in rocks everywhere.

All of these things are examples of how people create more resources than they use. Paul Ehrlich does not understand these things.

During the 19th century, people in the U.S. cut down almost all of the trees, because they needed land for growing food, they need trees to build houses, and they needed wood for fuel. Today, things are different. Today we use modern agriculture to grow more food on less land. We don't use wood for fuel anymore, because we have better sources of fuel. And the owners of private tree farms plant more trees than they cut down, because they are concerned about future profits. So even though the U.S. has more people today than in the past, we also have more trees today than in the past. "The U.S. Agriculture Department says America has 749 million acres of forestland. In 1920, we had 735 million acres of forest." source

In Niger, people were cutting down the trees for firewood. The forests were disappearing. But then the government changed its policy regarding trees. They started to allow private ownership of trees. People could now make more money by taking care of the trees and selling the fruit, than they could by cutting the trees down for firewood. So the number of trees has been getting bigger. And this has been happening, even as the human populaiton has been growing. By adopting property rights, they increased the number of trees, they increased the amount of food, they made people richer, and they protected the enviornment. source Paul Ehrlich does not understand this kind of thing. He does not understand the benefits of private property.

Paul Ehrlich does not understand any of these things that I just cited.

I agree with you that poor countries can't afford desalination. That's why they need to follow the role models of other poor countries that made themselves rich, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. They need to adopt property rights, industrialize, grow their economices, and become rich. Then they will be able to afford desalination. And they can use pipes to transport the water to anywhere. This could require raising the price of water by as much as one penny per gallon to pay for it, but it would be well worth it.

My basic point is that people create more resources than they use. And also, people need property rights and rule of law, in order to have the incentives to create wealth. Paul Ehrlich does not understand any of these things.

Grundle2600 14:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

"My basic point is that people create more resources than they use." This basic claim is the root of the confusion. It is true that before the mid 1800's humans didn't recognize the value of oil. Once we did, we started burning it. By recognizing the value of oil, we did not magically create the resource. The resource was there and now we are burning it. Once it is gone, there will be one less resource to make our lives as well fed and comfortable. We certainly have invented many things of huge value, for example computers and the internet. However, those things will have no value when we go hungry for lack of food. We have managed to produce larger quantities of food with fewer man hours of labor, but many of those gains are unsustainable because they require that we use resources faster than they can renew.Johntaves (talk) 06:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

No disrespect but your argument above is so full of errors that it'd take too much space to correct. Your citing of John Stossel (and earlier Julian Simon) as an authority is an indication. I'd refer you to the main article itself. You really need to think outside the rightwing spintank. 4.246.205.78 16:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There is plenty of space. I am interested in the evidenced based reasons why he is wrong.

1) The World Bank and IMF are government agencies, not private agencies. Every person who favors real capitalism believes that the World Bank and IMF should be abolished.

2) John Stossel cited his source for the increase in forest.

3) Julian Simon wrote a book where he explained that Paul Ehrlich's predictions did not come true. Therefore, the people who bash Simon are basically saying that Ehrlich's predicitions did come true, i.e., that at the end of the 20th century, 90% of the world's population starved to death, and all the natural resources were gone. But they are wrong. The reality is that Ehrlich was wrong, and Simon was right.

4) The other stuff that I said is true, and it's based on evidence. Science and technology are indeed very real things.

5) Paul Ehrlich has been consistenlty wrong for 40 years. He does not udnerstand science, technology, invention, innovation, or any other such thing. That's why he continues to make these bogus predictions.

Grundle2600 13:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Abolish the IMF the WTO and the World Bank and the economic situation in capitalist countries would quickly sprial downhill. This is, as I said before, because capitalist countries that invented these institutions need them to extract the resources of other countries. IOW, these countries are not self-sufficient. A tree farm does not a forest make. Tree farms, or repeatedly clear-cut areas of previous forest, are monocultures with all the trees within of the same age and little or no biological diversity. Sure some species, for lack of anything better and out of desperation will move back into one, but it's still a tree farm. A lot could be said about Simon. He was a skeptic. Skeptical about CFC's damage to the environment, global warming, the hazards of pcbs, pesticides and asbestos (wrong on all counts), but suffice with Ehrlich's comments [5]. I would direct you to Erhlich's book, Betrayal of science and reason: how anti-environmental rhetoric threatens our future. BTW, do you have a link that says that Ehrlich stated that that at the end of the 20th century, 90% of the world's population would starve to death? 4.246.200.135 14:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's my source:

(Ehrlich then switched from predicting an impending Ice Age to predicting Global Warming, saying, "The population of the U.S. will shrink from 250 million to about 22.5 million before 1999 because of famine and global warming.") link to source Grundle2600 17:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If I could, first there is a difference between the U.S. (what the above quote says) and the world (what you said). Also the source you use is not exactly a good one. While perhaps he did say this, I tried and could not verify it. I did see a claim that he stated "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now" [6]. I would venture to say that if one were to tabulate the total number of deaths from starvation in third world countries by that time, it may well have come to that member. No doubt that some of what he stated was not completely accurate (such things rarely are) but he is a respected scientist. And you have to remember that any controversial stand or person that may impinge upon industry will be attacked. As to the notion resources are unlimited (something I call the "fishes and loaves delusion") I'd give the following example of it's fallacy. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10433 66.14.116.114 18:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Another currently happening with possibly drastic results for humanity is colony collapse disorder [7]. In fact any extinction can be seen as the loss of a resource or potential resource, and we are experiencing them at a faster rate then even extinction of the dinosaurs [8] and it's all due to people. According to Peter Raven, past President of AAAS, the world's leading science organization, the end of this century could see a loss of "the majority of all species". If people are able to navigate their way through "the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century" it will only be because they got smart real fast and realized it would be to their benefit to shelve the arrogance and start behaving responsibly toward the earth. People may call this "alarmism" but when the experts agree that the house is on fire do we just stand inside the kitcen and rail against the alarmists? 4.246.204.8 14:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course there is a limited amount of atoms. What I'm saying is that people can invent, use, and build technology to use those atoms more efficiently. A computer used to be as big as a house - but today a computer fits on your desk, and it's a million times more powerful. We used to use copper wire to carry telephone signals - but today we use fiber optics, and those fiber optics use less material but carry more information. The trillion dollar silicon revolution is based on something that's found in rocks everywere. The people of the 17th century who worried about running out of candle wax never realized that someday the light bulb would be invented. Desalination, modern agriculture, and nuclear power are other things that increase the carryying capacity. The earth cannot support an infinte number of people. But given the right technologies, it is possible for 10 billion people to all have a first world standard of living, and we can do this without wrecking the planet, causing global warming, ruining the environment, or making species go extinct. During the hunter gatherer era, it took thousands of acres of land to support one person. Today with the right technology, one acre can support many people. And we are not going to lose most species. That same prediction was already made for the end of the 20th century, and it didn't happen. The IUCN Red List says about 2 species go extinct each year, not the thousands that some people claim. And here's a great article about the bogus predictions that the doomsayers made in the past. I was gullible when I was younger, but I learned from that, and now I'm no longer gullible enough to give any credibility at all to people who are consistenly wrong. Things are getting better, not worse. People create more resources than they use. That's why Paul Ehrlich was wrong in 1968, and that's why he's still wrong today. His equation I=PAT says that technology makes things worse. He's got it backwards. Technology makes things better.Grundle2600 21:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this response until today. Certainly things have "smallified" if you will, and yes we've become more efficient, but we are still up using resources that are non-renewable or at least unsustainable for the long term (and not too long at that), an example is oil. Your number of 10,000,000,000 people (compare this to the total number of gorillas in the world which amount to mere hundreds) shows that you finally acknowledge that there must be a limit. Good for you! I would argue for the reasons I've stated above that that number is still way too high. You say And we are not going to lose most species. That same prediction was already made for the end of the 20th century, who made that prediction for the end of the 20th century? You also said The IUCN Red List says about 2 species go extinct each year, not the thousands that some people claim perhaps you are confusing this with the "normal background extinction rate" of one to two species a year. This is the historical rate at which these species go extinct without factoring in the presence of humans.

"Paleontologists estimate the background rate of species extinction--the long-term extinction rate exhibited prior to humanity's influence--at between 1 and 10 extinctions each decade among every million fossil species. Assuming from a variety of estimates that 10 million species are alive today (Stork 1993 and 1997, May 1988, Hammond 1992), scientists can expect from 1 to 10 species to go extinct each year from all forms of life, visible and microscopic. In fact, species are exiting much faster. Based on records of extinction among the best- studied types of animals, ecologist Stuart Pimm and colleagues calculated extinction rates during the past century to range from 100 to 10,000 species per year (again, assuming 10 million species exist). That rate is between 100 and 1000 times faster than the background rate of species extinction (Pimm et al 1995)" [9]. "This is an extremely conservative estimate," says the IUCN "as it does not account for undocumented extinctions. Although the estimates vary greatly, it appears that current extinction rates are at least two to four orders of magnitude above background rates". You have to remember that it is very difficult and time consuming to verify an extinction. That is why there have been relatively few verifications. The IUCN says "proving that a species has gone extinct can take years to decades" [10]. Biota are not added to the list wily nily.

Without reading the entire diatribe of Ronald Bailey suffice to say that he's changed his tune about at least one of these "alarmist" predictions, global warming. Bailey who once wrote the book Global Warming and Other Eco Myths now says Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up [11], and recently in an article titled Global Warming -- Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough "Details like sea level rise will continue to be debated by researchers, but if the debate over whether or not humanity is contributing to global warming wasn't over before, it is now.... as the new IPCC Summary makes clear, climate change Pollyannaism is no longer looking very tenable" [12]. This should be a lesson: whenever you hear some spinmeister pontificate on scientific matters (especially if what he is generalizing about is favorable to business and industry), but who does not possess the learning to understand the things on which he holds forth, you should take what he says with a grain of salt. But I applaud Mr. Bailey for his turnaround.

About IPAT, no doubt Erhlich was wrong about things he said in the past (you seem to really dislike him). IPAT was formulated in the 1970s, and though there have been other variations it is still used today. But no one is infallable. Science does the best it can with the information it possesses at the time. Sometimes it is wrong but quite often it is right. I'm not sure how much more of this talk page we should use up on this debate though. Perhaps we'll just agree to disagree? 4.246.202.16 04:31, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure we can agree to disagree. Actually, I believe that global warming is real. I like what France did - they stopped mining coal, and now they get almost all of their electricity from nuclear power. I also believe that peak oil is real. The Tesla Roadster and other electric cars mean that we won't need oil for energy. Of course we still need oil to make plastic, but we can use thermal depolymerization to make as much oil as we want, out of garbage, sewage, and agricultural waste. Grundle2600 16:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

All these comments about famine being caused by the type of government seem misplaced. The modern famines in Africa have occurred because the climate has changed - there is less rain. THAT'S A FACT. The shift in rainfall from parts of Africa to Northern Europe is likely the result of Global Warming. And, rising CO2 emission are a direct result of overpopulation in the developed world (fossil fuel consumption) and the third world (deforestation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.8.252.213 (talk) 05:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no doubt that incompetent government policies can result in famine, and that this has been the case in a number of Communist countries. What does that have to do with the topic of the article - overpopulation? Virtually nothing. These comments are better posted in an article on Communist agricultural policies. Grundle's repeated, off-topic sermons about Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich are irrelevant, and attempt to frame the topic in question as one of economic policy rather than ecology and biological sciences. Appealing to a non-scientist with an extremist economic philosophy that most knowledgeable people rightly dismiss as deluded and simplistic, the way Grundle appeals to Libertarian direct-marketing expert Julian Simon, does nothing to enhance the discussion of this topic. A debate between a libertarian ideologue and a fear-mongering huckster (Simon verses Ehrlich) sheds about as much light on the topic of overpopulation as a debate between televangelist John Hagee and atheist gadfly Sam Harris sheds on religion. A few nuts on either side of the isle might find it entertaining, but it's simplistic and devoid of real information. For the record, Julian Simon was an abysmal failure - the population decline of Russia, the economic implosion and political decline of the United States (at the time when the United States embraced conservative economic policies with rabid zeal), the oil crisis, etc. all stand in stark contrast to Simon's millennialist predictions that capitalism would solve the world's problems or that resource substitutes were always easy to come by - in fact, the period of growing prosperity that Simon thought was the normal progression of human history was just the benefits of cheap oil reaped by a mere three generations. History is full of examples of technological and social decline, population crashes, and climate catastrophes. With each new resource "substitution," we've only come to use oil faster, as the technological improvements demand more energy (and most of these "substitutes" are plastics, which are just another form of the one key resource, oil). It's possible that some enterprising scientist will find a way to extract methane in commercial quantities from the ocean floor, or figure out nuclear fusion - I certainly hope so. But thus far, the market has not worked as Simon predicted in resolving this problem (and remember, Simon boasted that we already had the knowledge to provide from ever-increasing populations for the next 7 billion years), and those working on the problem tell us that there will likely never be a substance that will fully replace oil. People who flopped shouldn't be cited as experts on anything.--ManicBrit (talk) 22:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi I think that realising that overpopulation can cause poverty and famine is common sense.

If we think that natural resources are limited then we intuitively and mathematically must realise that logically as the population grows the people will have less and less. We do need to have special studies to realise about this potential problem. Of course that there are rich countries with a lot of people but they must import a lot of resources from other countries to keep their economies going. This in turn is making other countries to overexploit their resources. For example much of the best land in latin america is used for export commodity crops such as coffee, leaving the rest for the local poor farmes. Guillermo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.174.181 (talk) 21:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

When a rich, densely populated country like Hong Kong imports resources from a poor country, Hong Kong is exporting money. In order to get that money, Hong Kong had to create something of value. The poor country benefits because it is importing that money. This is a win-win situation that makes both Hong Kong and the poor country better off. Eventually the poor country will become rich. People create resources, and our supply of resources is getting bigger. Petroleum was not a resource until someone invented a way to use it. We used to use copper wires to carry telephone signals, but now we use fiber optics. Compared to the copper wire, the fiber optic uses less material but carries more information, so now we have more resources than before. The trillion dollar silicon revolution is based on something that's found in worthless rocks everywhere, so that's another example of how we create resources. Each decade, we have more resources than we did during the previous decade. Grundle2600 (talk) 11:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

"The poor country benefits because it is importing that money ... Eventually the poor country will become rich". Right, that's why poor, overexploited countries like Africa nad India are such swell places to live and filled with such happy, prosperous people. BTW, what do they do when their resources run out? 4.246.205.228 (talk) 20:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

There is far too much discussion here. This page is not for debating the overpopulation issue, it is for developing the article. All we need to do is summarize the work of other people. Barrylb (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Still no response to actual famines caused by overpopulation. What grundle is saying may be violently politically incorrect, his argument is evidenced based. 71.132.220.167 (talk) 21:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

"Bulls--t! and the earth doesn't revolve around the sun. Simply, put one small bowl of food in a cage full of (overpopulated with) rats. When they eat it all they suffer a famine, no? It's common sense stupid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.196.193.180 (talk) 01:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Show a number of rats "n" for which that would NOT be true. Any number of rats would have the same result. One rat would overpopulate if your definition is starving after eating all the food. But then, when you turn the talk page into a forum, you're headed down the road to bozoville. Renglish (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course, rains and population growth affect yields per person. But in a rich country, you can handle that. That is why there are famines in Africa but not in Europe, in North Korea but not in South Korea, there were in China but not in Taiwan etc. In capitalism, a country soon gets so rich that it can handle environmental conditions in many ways. This is a ranking of countries by the degree of capitalism (i.e., economic freedom) [13]. The countries choosing capitalism have become rich during a few decades, those choosing more socialist policies have stayed poor, regardless of the continent or natural resources. --Forp (talk) 13:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This article is about overpopulation, not about communism. And, in any case, almost all the rich countries are socialist, and have been since World War II. It is a mixed economy, with both capitalism and socialism, private ownership combined with social security combined with birth control, that all rich countries have in common. Also, overpopulation is more than a question of population density, as has been pointed out (and ignored) many times. It is a question of available resources. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to point out that everything in this section of the talk page that was signed by me (except for this paragraph) was copied by someone else from the talk archives - some of my comments are nearly three years old. I am well versed in both the Ehrlich opinion and the Simon opinion, and did my best to make sure that the article cites both. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Overpopulation IS a fact

Humans are overpopulated and it is a fact. Any reasonable definition of overpopulation must recognize that if the organism consumes its necessary resources faster than those resources can renew, then the organism is by definition overpopulated. One cannot argue that we are not dependent on fossil fuels. Imagine how many billions would die within a year if oil and coal consumption were halted right now. I added a paragraph at the beginning of the article to state this. We humans may invent ways to sustain the current population without consuming resources faster than they renew, but until then we are overpopulated. We might also manage to comprehend this and reduce the birth rate such that the population drops to a sustainable level without any drop in the quality of life. In other words, we might be able to solve the current overpopulation problem without great suffering associated with the natural solution to overpopulation, but again, that does not change the fact that currently there are too many humans on the planet. I agree that poverty does not prove overpopulation and that many are confused by this. Indeed you've got it somewhat backwards. Consumption of fossil fuels has made our lives extremely luxurious, not "living in poverty", but it is that unsustainable consumption that means we are overpopulated.Johntaves (talk) 06:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Overpopulation is not a fact. Fossil fuels are not necessary resources. As they get more scarce, they get more expensive, and as (and even before) they get more expensive, there is an increasing incentive to develop substitutes. --Forp (talk) 13:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

"Population growth" images

The two images given in the "Population growth" section claim a slight population decline in the 17th century. This is NOT supported by any of the sources listed in the article "World population estimates". It seems the author of the files used the lowest population estimate given there for each date, instead of sticking to one of the sources (or at least using the average value each time), thus creating an "artificial" decline by using different sources for different dates. IMO this should be corrected, or the images removed.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Inconsitent Claims About World Population Growth

The article claims that, "World population is currently growing by approximately 74 million people per year. If current fertility rates continued, in 2050 the total world population would be 11 billion, with 169 million people added each year." These two sentences have two completely different estimates for world population growth. Either one number should be omitted, or a range of numbers should be used, such as "somewhere between 74 and 169 million people are added each year." Jonthebranch (talk) 01:42, 11 December 2009

Lack of Criticism Section

Are we to believe that views critical or skeptical of the concept of overpopulation either do not exist or are not documented anywhere? By the above debate on "communism" causing famine it would seem that at least one criticism does exist, that the effects attributed to overpopulation are actually the effects of economic policy.

I myself remember reading once (I think it was in PJ O'Rourke's "All the Trouble in the World") that if the entire world's population (6 bil at the time) lived at the population density of Manhattan everybody on Earth would fit in an area the size of the former Yugoslavia. In fact this article itself already states that urbanization could be a way to mitigate the effects of "overpopulation", implying that it is not a problem of absolute numbers but one of organization and distribution of population.

Just some thoughts, and it looks like the article itself already contains a lot of this information. Anyone care condensing it into one section?

69.12.129.253 (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

If the article already contains the multiple points of view there is probably little benefit in having a separate section. There are some thoughts on criticism sections at Wikipedia:Criticism#Evaluations in a "Criticism" section. By the way, the overpopulation issue is much more complex than simply squeezing everyone into a given land area. It is about the availability of resources, and the consumption and waste of all those people. -- Barrylb (talk) 07:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

In general, it's better for criticism to be sprinkled throughout the article, instead of having its own section. If you read the entire article, you will see that both main viewpoints on this subject (i.e., the Paul Ehrlich belief in overpopulation, and the Julian Simon belief that technology and proper economic policy can solve the problems that Ehrlich blames on overpopulation) are both well represented in the various sections of the article. As it is now, the various sections contain various criticisms, and defenses, of the subject. Grundle2600 (talk) 21:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Quote

I recommend adding a quote:

“ Consider the problem of over-population. Rapidly mounting human numbers are pressing ever more heavily on natural resources requiring the annual increase of numbers to be reduced. But how is it to be done ... ? Using famine, pestilence and war on the one hand, or by birth control on the other ? -- Aldous Huxley ”

“ Neglect of an effective birth control policy is a never-failing source of poverty which, in turn, is the parent of revolution and crime. --Aristotle ”

“ We have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domestic plants and animals, but rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves. -- Arnold Toynbee ”

217.136.156.187 (talk) 13:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can include these quotes to the article ? 217.136.156.187 (talk) 13:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)