Disclaimer:
I do not intend any of my statements in this post to be accusatory or insulting, I understand where everyone is coming from, I'm just explaining why I disagree. This subject is very important to me. I don't believe that anyone here is malicious in any way.
It seems to me historical arguments of world overpopulation are greatly exaggerated. Certainly, there are areas that have populations that are too dense to support the humans that occupy them but cries of overpopulation have largely been a smokescreeen for
racial discrimination . Who's to judge which lives should fall victim to "natural selection" in the form of plague and famine? Are western lives more valuable than third-world lives? We're humans, and it's dangerous to imply that some people don't have a right to their lives because of a geographic accident of birth.
Overpopulation is and must be a relative term. Relative to space? There is enough habitable land mass to give every human being on the planet at least 5.2 acres (and probably more like 6.2 acres).
The habitable land mass of the world is 57,115,500 sq.miles. The current population is over 6 billion. Assume that by the time you read this post it's 7 billion.
There are 640 acres in a square
mile. This gives a total of 36,553,920,000 acres of habitable land mass. This gives each human being on the planet 5.2 acres, assuming a world population of 7 billion. Realistically, not everyone will live alone, so assume three people to a home. That's 15.6 acres per family. 1/4 of a square mile per family. Most city dwellers wouldn't know what to do with that much space.
You could easily argue that this allotment of space is entirely unrealistic, for both political and practical reasons. politically, you could never get the interests and individuals who own most of the world's land to give them up for the good of mankind. They have too much to lose. This would be a valid point, but then the issue comes down to greed, which in my mind is the primary reason for the issues commonly attribute to overpopulation.
Where would the infrastructure to sustain society go? The hospitals, schools, and civic buildings? Include space-saving homes such as high-rises, and you are left with even more space. It would take planning on a scale the world has never known, but I truly believe that the world's population could comfortably live in a much smaller area. As it is we only occupy less than 1% of the available non-icy land. Better buildings, better settlements. We'd then have much more land than we will need for generations to come.
The space argument is out the window. Let's dismantle the argument that overpopulation is relative to
resources . Food production has outstripped population growth by an average of 1% since 1940. Add in new developments in biotech such as golden rice, and we're more than fine.
Here's a counterpoint:
http://www.reprohealth.org/reprohealthDB/doc/demo.pdf
This a pro-population control document, but even they admit that the rate of population growth tapered off sometime around 1965. look at the table called "World population growth by decade"
Don't get me wrong. Fewer births per year with continued increases in productivity would be beneficial to all of us, and would raise the average standard of living, but sustainability is for me and many others a non-issue. We will continue to meet the needs of our population, as long as we don't let greed and politics get in the way.
The inequity is there, the few take from the many. That, and
never overpopulation has been our problem all along.
Here's another link on Eugenics for those who are interested:
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/
I was a little surprised it was such a short post, 'though. 
