Talk:Human overpopulation

This article is complete junk science

There is no definition of "overpopulation" in science, be it epidemiology, demography, or otherwise. No one has successfully defined "carrying capacity" of the earth, and numerous predictions of mass starvation in places like India have been proven wrong. This article should be removed from Wikipedia as overpopulation is pseudo-science and has been replaced by "demographic transition theory." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.247.24 (talk) 22:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Overpopulation is junk science only in the Mirror Universe inhabited by conservatives, where nobody ever dies of starvation, except for unimportant people who aren't even millionaires. In our universe, the one Wikipedia covers, 15 million children a year die of starvation. You will probably be happier reading Conservapedia, which reports on the Mirror Universe, where the earth was crated in 4000 B.C., there is no global warming, and tax cuts for the rich will end unemployment. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Admittedly this article could deal with a criticism section, it seems horribly one sided. Even with the food production graph in there, little explanation is given. 2.98.212.22 (talk) 23:46, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Human beings are not animals. God saves souls. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.236.34.52 (talk) 18:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what this has to do with overpopulation, unless you think God is ok with Christians allowing kids to starve to death. Christians are taught that the greatest virtues are faith, hope, and charity, but that the greatest of these is charity. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Human beings are animals subject to all the laws of nature that any other animal is. It's the ignoring and shunning of this fact that has caused more human suffering than any other thing, incident or idea. And it is the very source of our being prey to our instincts. The ignorance leaves us free to breed away in a fantasy world where we can ignore the truth until nature forces us to face it. It is a fact that humans do this. Read history, it's all there.

The article is completely valid, but does indeed need some tighter definitions and rethinking. --DanielCD (talk) 02:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Needs a major rewrite

This article needs a major rewrite. It states that it is an article about human overpopulation and as such it should answer these questions:

1) what is overpopulation? 2) are humans over populated on the planet and specific countries? 3) what must happen to reverse overpopulation? 4) what must happen to avoid overpopulation?

Quote from the first sentence of the article. "Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat." An organism cannot exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat, unless it consumes necessary resources faster than they renew. Humans are consuming resources faster than they can renew. Those resources, fossil fuels for example, are essential to maintain the current population level. Therefore, we are overpopulated. Every country is overpopulated because every country must burn oil to feed their numbers. (this answers #1, and #2)

If we manage to figure out how to use solar, wind, and/or other renewables such that the whole population is sustained without consuming resources faster than they renew, then we can claim we have transitioned from overpopulated to not overpopulated. (This is one solution to question #3)

Ansley Coale States that it is not possible for a population to maintain for long a birth rate much below or above its death rate. If the birth rate is above the death rate for enough time, the death rate will be forced to rise to match it. When the death rate is forced to rise, we are suffering the effects of overpopulation. (this is another definition for "overpopulation"). Throughout human history the birth rate has never been controlled to any significant degree, thus the death rate has risen to match it. When humans figure out more efficient ways to provide for our numbers (e.g. farming, internal combustion engines, refrigeration), the death rate drops, the population climbs, then inevitably the death rate is forced to rise to at least match it again. Similarly, if the resources necessary to provide for our numbers become scarce, then the level that can be provided for will drop and the death rate will be forced above the birth rate in order to bring the population down.

Recently, say the past 200 years, many countries have been able to keep discovering more efficient ways of providing for our existence so fast that even though the population has risen dramatically, the death rate has not been forced to rise to match it yet. Recently, (within the past 100 years) we have invented modern birth control, which has enabled the birth rate to drop. With a replacement rate of 2.1 (another way of stating the death rate), the total fertility rate (average number of children a person has) must be maintained at or below 2.1 in order to avoid suffering the effects of overpopulation again.

Thus the birth rate must be below the death rate that overpopulation causes, (for example any death rate that puts the replacement rate above 2.1 is potentially a death rate caused by overpopulation), but also the population must be below what the current technology can sustain.

I hope it is obvious that the above is logical, correct, and a superior way of describing the concept of overpopulation. I am unable to find something that I can reference to support this, however. I would like to leave this here so that contributors can learn from it. I will attempt to publish this and get it "peer reviewed", but if someone can help find where it has already been done, please speak up @ john.taves@stopattwo.org. I have serious trouble comprehending what a "peer" would be for this. Anyone can follow this, so we are all peers.

Also see http://stopattwo.org Johntaves (talk) 18:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Democracy threatened by Overpopulation

"It is even speculated that democracy is threatened due to overpopulation, and could give rise to totalitarian style governments."

It was speculated in Aldous Huxley's 1958 Brave New World Revisited (a non-fictional essay) that "twenty years from now all the world's over-populated and underdeveloped countries will be under some form of totalitarian rule". He further goes on to say that democracies in developed countries will eventually be toppled by supply disruptions from underdeveloped countries. One could make a parallel between China and the US; however India has maintained a democracy despite being arguably one of the most over-populated countries. I think there still is a great deal of speculation in that democracy is threatened by overpopulation. The dissolution of the USSR further weakens this claim.

Ultimately, I am not sure speculation from 1958 is sufficient to indicate that this is a present day thought. I therefore updated it to reference Huxley, providing better context.63.241.190.32 (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2011(UTC).

I think there is a population limit where democracy becomes ineffective. How does anyone really have a say amidst 600 million people? Is there any discussion of this anywhere?

You also have to consider other factors, such as unrestrained free markets and information control. I'm not sure this is the article for it, but it would be interesting to see more about it. --DanielCD (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Quality of live and defining overpopulation

I agree this article could use some additional discussion.

A lot of the concern with overpopulation is about quality of life, and that's something that's hard to research and quantify. Overpopulation can be operationally defined, relative to space, food availability, quality of life - in relation to what the current discussion in concerned with. But it seems the survival of the organism in question is the most important.

A population will get so high that growth can no longer be sustained, the environment is destroyed and resources depleted, and such a population levels off. Technology cannot manufacture resources. Technology is what supports this leveled population. Technology is fragile, and over-credited with what’s possible (e.g. the Titanic). This would be a very fragile situation because anything that perturbed the distribution of resources (e.g. food) would cause not just inconvenience, but deaths. Social unrest, coronal mass ejections, earthquakes, anything that upsets the fragile technology that supports this massive ‘leveled’ population could push it into a catastrophic crash. Run out of the fuel that supports the machine, and it’s all gone.

So you can say that, if you have a massive die-off after the leveling of an exponentially growing population, you probably have an over-population. This is opposed to a healthy population that sustains a certain level where it can maintain itself with a reasonable quality of life. But again, how do you define the point of ‘best’ population? One that has enough food to eat in a standing-room-only world? One that has a high quality of life?

My interest is in that exponential curve. Humans are subject to all the laws of nature that other animals are, so let's see some comparisons to places where other animals' populations have been seen to follow this curve. That curve needs some more discussion, because how can it not result in a crash or population dip. Population curves don't just go up forever and they don't just level off forever, they eventually fall dramatically. What are the arguments, aside from the glorification of an over-rated intellect, that humanity will be different? Carrying capacity would also need to be defined relative to a population with and one without supportive technology. The CC would be different at each point. But technology, as I said, is fragile. Would a carrying capacity defined by what is achieved through technology be valid?

Even with 10 billion people, what of the quality of life? People already suffer tremendously from the population levels now at 6+billion, having instinctual anxiety living in an environment that is unsuitable to social/emotional needs, destroyed cultures and social groups, living among millions of strangers. Could you perhaps also define overpopulation as the level where social coherence is all but destroyed?

It would be nice to have some discussion of these questions, especially more about the quality of life in relation to overpopulation. This is so ignored, though, because it is an idea that is so feared. Can the instinctual creatures that human beings are be capable of leaving resources untouched to the extent that they could maintain a stable population with a resonable quality of life? Is it possible?

It's hard to cover all points in a comment like this, but I am very interested in where that exponential curve could (must?) go. I'm sure a lot of people are. --DanielCD (talk) 02:18, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

These are excellent questions and clearly this article doesn't handle them. I think there is a very simple solution to one problem, and it is duh obvious if you pay attention to the definition. "Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. " How is it possible for an organism's numbers to exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat? The answer is that it must be consuming resources faster than they renew. There must be some "bank" of life sustaining resources that the organism is eating into, and that bank will run out (if it doesn't run out, then it is sustainable or within the carrying capacity). It is like eating your last chicken. Sure you eat today, but you just wrecked your stream of eggs.

Humans are doing just that on a massive scale. We don't eat oil, but we must burn it in order to provide meals for 7 billion each year. Without oil, we don't plant, fertilize, harvest, distribute, package, or store anywhere near 7 billion squares a year. (Oil is renewable, but we are burning it so fast we call it non-renewable.)

Additionally we must define "suffering the effects of overpopulation", which can be defined as having hit the unsustainable limit. If we define the sustainable limit as the carrying capacity, then the unsustainable limit is the number that the organism's population can rise to including the consumption of both renewable and nonrenewable resources. If it can't rise farther, then deaths will occur because there are too are being born. How many will die totally depends on the birth rate. Each adult can claim one child as their replacement. All extras will die before becoming an adult.

What does this mean for us? Well, we must get our numbers down to where we are not consuming resources; e.g. oil, coal, draining aquifers, chopping down forests, piling up garbage, faster than those resources renew. It is a waste of time to attempt to calculate what that sustainable number might be. It will take time to get our numbers down and during that time technologies to replace oil, coal, etc might be or not be discovered and we have no way to predict what numbers those might support because we haven't discovered them yet. In short, we can let future generations discover those numbers. We have the responsibility to get our average number of children below two so that the population can decline peacefully. Johntaves (talk) 06:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

2nd sentence & basis for usage in article

Currently the second sentence is: "The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth" followed by a single (Guardian newspaper article 'Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land') citation. Unfortunately the citation doesn't have anything to do with general usage of the term "overpopulation", and therefore doesn't support the claim being made at all (to do that, you'd need some kind of linguistics data showing statistics of usage of the term). Previously we had something like "this article refers to human overpopulation" and that was a much better segue from the first sentence into the rest of the article. -- TyrS  chatties  03:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

images

can we have some from australia please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.172.251 (talk) 06:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The article shows inbred bias

Overpopulation wipes out genetic diversity within the species that does it. Unless you just want to know pleasant things. I mean the truth or pleasant things? Your choice. Mankind has long been in an inbreeding depression which worsens with population growth. This is not a religious viewpoint. For the article to be unbiased it must touch this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.42.184.90 (talk) 02:07, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable reference that we can use as a basis for including information in the article? Barrylb (talk) 08:56, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Some simple math

The land surface area of the State of Texas, divided by the current estimated human population of Earth, equals almost 2,000 ft^2 per human. Texas, it is large.

After doing that bit of math a few years back, I've been wanting to see an author write a realistically super-populated world into a story. So here's the numbers to make it easy. :)

What would be interesting to see is a table comparing every super-pop SF story, with data on the population numbers, how high the buildings, whether or not it's total planet coverage or just the land, etc. Who came close? Who got it laughably wrong? Has any author got the numbers anywhere near right to match the descriptions in their stories? My bet is even in tales where the population is restricted to a few mega-arcologies, the buildings are still usually too large for the depicted population densities.

The total surface area of Earth could be divided into 2,745,191,623,680 – 2,000 ft^2 parcels, using this 196,940,400 I found for miles^2 for Earth's total surface area. Make that several trillion packed elbow to elbow in a multi-story building that covers an entire Earth sized planet. Even if necessary hallways, HVAC, water, sewer etc services uses half the space and cuts it down to 1,000 ft^2 per human, the 2,745,191,623,680 number is still the two-trillion pound gorilla in the room, and every individual still has plenty of space to rattle around in.

Science fiction authors have vastly undershot the mark, many times, in super-population dystopic tales. A 100 level building, and having to import *all* food and other resources, that just ain't plausible at all. With 1,000 ft^2 per person, that's 270 trillion, there's still gobs of elbow room, and the roof could all be covered in high density hydroponic farm.

More plausible, four story building, bottom floor all services, middle two floors living space, top floor food production. Cut the room size down to 200 ft^2 and again give 1/2 the space to etc and the pop per floor is 13,725,958,118,400 or 27,451,916,236,800 total. There we go! A mere 27.4 trillion beings in a world girdling building. Not quite 70,000 per mile^2. Monaco's density is over 42,000 mile^2, so I suppose the 27.4T number could be within spitting distance of "packed in elbow to elbow", as long as it's kept to only two floors – but 200 square feet per person is ridiculously generous, in really dark and dingy dystopic Sci-Fi.

What it boils down to is so many of the doom and gloomers either don't bother to do the math, or they do know the numbers yet choose to ignore them because the hard data doesn't mesh with their idealism.

I'm not saying such a situation would be a good thing, but it's not an impossible thing. Earth is still mostly empty, it's only a few large urban areas that are what can be considered crowded. Unfortunately most of the ones making noise about "overpopulation" live in such places and apparently have no clue about the wide open spaces, other than they ought to be locked up as "wilderness" and people banned from going out there. Bizzybody (talk) 19:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not necessarily with space but with resources. 68.41.154.157 (talk) 03:32, 22 October 2011 (UTC)