How big of an issue is overpopulation? What would you do about it?

[Acanthus]

There are 6,697,254,041 people on Earth as of 2008.

The size of Texas is 268,820 square miles.

6,697,254,041 / 268,820 = 24913 people per square mile.

Not a lot considering Monaco has a density of almost 40000 per square mile.

I don't think we are really worried about over population. Environmental problems are an entirely different issue.

That density requires a lot more land to support the region.

It is not self-sufficient.

 

[Acanthus]

Getting there, and my solution is not to have kids. Therefore I don't have to worry about this, since it won't happen in my lifetime and it won't affect my descendants.

Overpopulation produces one of two possible results.
1. Self-correction. Food is limited, people starve. Plague sets in, people die. War happens, people kill each other. The population drops, as it has throughout history.
2. Lifestyle change. Gas is unavailable, people cease traveling even for work. Food is expensive, people eat locally. Land is overcrowded, people relocate to less desirable areas. The consumer-style life that many of us live is reduced to the essentials, more in line with how people have lived throughout history.

exponential growth ensures that simple relocating wont solve the problem within 3 generations.

There are more people alive now than there are in the ground from all of the deaths in human history... fact.

 

[frostedflakes]

Isn't world population expected to peak at about 10 billion by 2050-2100? Keep in mind that as countries like India and Brazil become more industrialized, birth rates will go down. You can see the same trend in any industrialized country, people just don't have as many kids. Some countries like Japan have birth rates below the replacement rate so they're actually experiencing population decline.

If world pop is only going to reach 10 billion I don't see how that wouldn't be sustainable. You also have to remember that in 50 years technology will have advanced quite a bit and we'll be able to utilize resources much more efficiently than now. In 100 years I'd be surprised if we weren't at least mining resources from other moons and planets, and maybe even colonizing them.

 

[Bitek]

We are still biological beings, and still subject to biological limitations. We will grow as much as our environment will support, with obvious booms and crashes.

As the local environment becomes more stressful, people with either migrate to continue expansion, or will stay and naturally slow their growth due to pressure.

We already see it in densely populated or wealthy areas. Raising children becomes more expensive, so families choose to have less children to be able to put more resources into the few they have for a better advantage. True for much of Europe, middle class USA, China (tho forced) and other similar areas.

If you want to spur more growth, add more resources and decrease their cost. The system will find its own equalibrium