News Is Overpopulation an Important Issue? Examining Solutions

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Overpopulation is recognized as a significant global issue, primarily driven by high birth rates in less developed countries lacking education and contraceptive access. Discussions highlight the need for both local and global strategies to address the problem, with some suggesting a zero population growth approach, though its feasibility is questioned. Various opinions on sustainable population numbers range from 100 million to 2 billion, with concerns about practical implications such as resource management and job availability. The debate also touches on the potential consequences of unchecked population growth, including environmental degradation and societal strain. Overall, the conversation underscores the complexity of finding a balanced solution to population sustainability.
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Is over population an important issue? Can any actions be taken? Should any actions be taken? Can it be addressed locally or does it require a global approach?
 
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I'd say overpopulation is something we definitively have to worry about. I'd reckon it is a global issue, and not just a local one. As the wikipedia article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate states, the highest birth rates are typically in the least developed countries. Those with lack of education and contraceptives. It looks to me like a country will go through various birth rates as it develops, with the least occurring once it reaches developed status.

Hopefully, we can reach a good medium, where the birth rates about equal the death rates per year. However I know this tends to have consequences too, but more to do with the workforce and who takes care of the elderly and such.
 
edpell said:
Is over population an important issue? Can any actions be taken? Should any actions be taken? Can it be addressed locally or does it require a global approach?

Mother Nature will address the problem in due course. It might not be pretty.
 
edpell said:
Is over population an important issue? Can any actions be taken? Should any actions be taken? Can it be addressed locally or does it require a global approach?


The answers to your questions are yes, yes, yes and probably a combination of both local and global policies would be required.

I would hate to seem like a doomsayer, the reality is that how it will all turn out is far from certain, but just how high the stakes are can be made clear by this point. In the population studies that were part of the foundations of chaos theory, the phenomenon of populations that rise exponentially and then collapse to a small fraction of their peak in repeated cycles was shown to follow a quite simple mathematical formula. One of the parameters of the formula is one of these coefficient values whose maximum value is 1. It is an expression of the current population as a proportion of capacity of the active circumstances. Understand, we could be talking about goldfish in a pond, or rabbits in a warren, or whatever. Given the prevalence of predators, of disease, of available food and of liveable space, there is a figure that might be regarded as the capacity of organisms for those circumstances, and the co-efficient number is the active population as a proportion of that capacity. So the population may cycle as high as values of greater than 0.9 and collapse to values of lower than 0.1. But all such studies reflected one universal truth. If the active population ever reaches a value of 1, the result is not the collapse of the population, but its complete annihilation. I’m not sure what today’s human population of planet Earth is as a proportion of what would be capacity, but the fact that the population continues to rise as fast as it is doing has to be a concern. There are those studies that have suggested that, though it is still rising, the rate at which it is rising is decreasing. This suggests that we might be approaching the top of the curve. But if infant mortality falls and life expectancy increases without a concomitant reduction in the birth rate, population pressures are only going to increase. It cannot but be a worry.
 
edpell said:
Is over population an important issue? Can any actions be taken? Should any actions be taken? Can it be addressed locally or does it require a global approach?

I think a better question is what is the optimal size of humanity to achieve maximum quality of life?
 
I went to the "Biophysical Economics Conference" at the SUNY college of Environmental Science and Forestry a few months ago. One of the presentations by a Prof. Jack Alpert made the case for a maximum sustainable human population of 100 million. This is the smallest number I have ever seen suggested. He made some good points in support things like soil erosion rates and soil regeneration rates.

He has a youtube video
 
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edpell said:
Is over population an important issue? Can any actions be taken? Should any actions be taken? Can it be addressed locally or does it require a global approach?

Yes, I'd say so. We could possibly fix it with a zero population growth idea, but I doubt that could be implemented.
 
edpell said:
I went to the "Biophysical Economics Conference" at the SUNY college of Environmental Science and Forestry a few months ago. One of the presentations by a Prof. Jack Alpert made the case for a maximum sustainable human population of 100 million. This is the smallest number I have ever seen suggested. He made some good points in support things like soil erosion rates and soil regeneration rates.

He has a youtube video
The video doesn't give any way to achieve what he proposes or what he's basing his claims on. Most of Canada can't sustain crops or people. That goes for a lot of the land in the world. Water is already a problem, he forgets people need water, all those crops and animals need water. How much polution would 100 million humans produce? We can't handle waste management in most populated areas and waste is being shipped off by land and by sea to other areas.

Does he have a solution for where these people are going to find jobs? We can't employ the people we have now. And we can't afford to support them. Sustainable does not equal practical, affordable, or even reasonable. I think the world's population is too large right now.

IMO, that video was ridiculous. He's more correct with the number of humans needing to be less than 1.6 billion.
 
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edpell said:
I went to the "Biophysical Economics Conference" at the SUNY college of Environmental Science and Forestry a few months ago. One of the presentations by a Prof. Jack Alpert made the case for a maximum sustainable human population of 100 million. This is the smallest number I have ever seen suggested. He made some good points in support things like soil erosion rates and soil regeneration rates.

He has a youtube video

That narration is nonsensical and fallacy ridden. From his bio:
Designing ways to make humankind viable.
 
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  • #10
Evo said:
Does he have a solution for where these people are going to find jobs? We can't employ the people we have now. And we can't afford to support them. Sustainable does not equal practical, affordable, or even reasonable. I think the world's population is too large right now.

? That is 100 million a factor of 70 few than today. He agrees with you. How many do you think are sustainable?
 
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  • #11
mheslep said:
That narration is nonsensical and fallacy ridden.

The soil erosion rates and soil formation rates seem pretty prosaic. How many do you, mheslep, think are sustainable?
 
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  • #12
Char. Limit said:
Yes, I'd say so. We could possibly fix it with a zero population growth idea, but I doubt that could be implemented.

I agree. I think that is why we have moved this conversation from what should we do to what would be an ideal number. That latter requiring no action plan just philosophical discussion.
 
  • #13
Everytime I fly I marvel at how much unused land and fresh water there is. They idea that the world is overpopulated begins to sound real rediculous. Another, "The sky is falling", story all over again. They only thing I have against the population increasing is that we will end up with more people making up things to complain about.
 
  • #14
drankin said:
Everytime I fly I marvel at how much unused land and fresh water there is. They idea that the world is overpopulated begins to sound real rediculous. Another, "The sky is falling", story all over again. They only thing I have against the population increasing is that we will end up with more people making up things to complain about.

control_the_pet_population_have_your_liberal_bumper_sticker-p128669871528264788tmn6_152.jpg


[PLAIN]http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001489107/4cee47acfa0be107d9652bce296f46eb_xlarge.jpeg

Seems like people agree with you there.
 
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  • #15
edpell said:
? That is 100 million a factor of 70 few than today. He agrees with you.
oh good lord, I was thinking 100 billion, and I was thinking he was completely out of his mind. (we had some really whacko population threads in social & Earth sciences, but this one's my fault and a doozie!)

(wipes spray off of keyboard and monitor)

NEVERMIND THEN!

I keep saying I'm severely sleep deprived.
 
  • #17
Incidentely, it appears that his narration is based on economics only. Maybe that the total accumulated testosterone level is also somewhat important for determining the maximum sustainable population.
 
  • #18
mheslep said:
Some dozen countries that are going away, even without the benefit of those "Designing ways to make humankind viable."
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3029712&postcount=199

Maybe as the population density in these countries decreases the quality and ease of life will increase and at some point they will reach an equilibrium of population (births equal to deaths).
 
  • #19
Andre said:
Incidentely, it appears that his narration is based on economics only. Maybe that the total accumulated testosterone level is also somewhat important for determining the maximum sustainable population.

Let's not get stuck on Alpert he is an extremist. Do we have any more moderate calculations for sustainable number?
 
  • #20
Andre said:
Incidentely, it appears that his narration is based on economics only. Maybe that the total accumulated testosterone level is also somewhat important for determining the maximum sustainable population.
:biggrin:
 
  • #21
edpell said:
Let's not get stuck on Alpert he is an extremist. Do we have any more moderate calculations for sustainable number?
8 billion (= 16 / 2 )
 
  • #22
mheslep said:
8 billion (= 16 / 2 )

It seems you are having some feelings about this subject. The question does touch on a core human emotional topic reproduction. I would guess all people have strong feelings about this subject. But I think we can manage our feelings and talk about sustainable number of humans given today's level of technology.
 
  • #23
edpell said:
It seems you are having some feelings about this subject. The question does touch on a core human emotional topic reproduction. I would guess all people have strong feelings about this subject. But I think we can manage our feelings and talk about sustainable number of humans
Ok, its your thread. Why not start it off with some relatively well established facts or data from respected sources. The video doesn't qualify, even remotely.

given today's level of technology.
Why today's technology, when this issue under almost any circumstance must be dealt with over generations?
 
  • #24
There is an organization called "Population Institute" their website is http://www.populationinstitute.org/programs/sustainability/
They say the sustainable population is 5.7 billion.

Then there is the "Optimum Population Trust" at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.optimum.html
They propose numbers from 2.7 billion to 5.1 billion depending on assumptions.

Here is a paper that makes reference to predictions from 0.1 to 2.0 billion. http://www.evfit.com/population_max.htm#note10
With the papers author chiming in at 0.6 billion.

Optimum Human Population Size
Gretchen C. Daily University of California (Berkeley) Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich Stanford University (July 1994)
offer "To us it seems reasonable to assume that, until cultures and technology change radically, the optimum number of people to exist simultaneously is [sic km] in the vicinity of 1.5 to 2 billion people."
from http://dieoff.org/page99.htm
 
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  • #25
edpell said:
...

Optimum Human Population Size
Gretchen C. Daily University of California (Berkeley) Anne H. Ehrlich and Paul R. Ehrlich Stanford University (July 1994)
offer "To us it seems reasonable to assume that, until cultures and technology change radically, the optimum number of people to exist simultaneously is [sic km] in the vicinity of 1.5 to 2 billion people."
from http://dieoff.org/page99.htm
Erlich was famously wrong to the point of derangement.
Paul Erlich said:
If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000
Erlich said:
"the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Actually Erlich did turn out to be gambler, and lost $10,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager
 
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  • #27
mheslep said:
Erlich was famously wrong to the point of derangement.
Erlich said:
If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000

Hmm...he may have had a point there...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=429726

:biggrin:
 
  • #28
OK we do not like Alpert and Erlich. Let's try a different tract setting an upper bound that we can all agree on.

Can we all agree that one human per square meter of Earth's surface area is not sustainable with today's technology? That is 5E14, 500 trillion are not sustainable. Can anyone offer a more exact upper bound?
 
  • #29
drankin said:
Everytime I fly I marvel at how much unused land and fresh water there is. They idea that the world is overpopulated begins to sound real rediculous. Another, "The sky is falling", story all over again. They only thing I have against the population increasing is that we will end up with more people making up things to complain about.

That's funny. Just the other day I was at an overcrowded beach and felt, darn, how can anyone think we are not overpopulated.

Of course neither of these 2 examples contribute anything to the debate.

Ok, its your thread. Why not start it off with some relatively well established facts or data from respected sources.

What kind of references do you want for Biodiversity crisis, global warming, water scarcity, oil depletion?

Check these BBC articles, especially the graphics which are cited from UNEP.

Biodiversity crisis: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3667300.stm
Water scarcity: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2943946.stm
Global warming: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2005/20051103_GlobalTemperatures.pdf
 
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  • #30
edpell said:
OK we do not like Alpert and Erlich. Let's try a different tract setting an upper bound that we can all agree on.

Can we all agree that one human per square meter of Earth's surface area is not sustainable with today's technology? That is 5E14, 500 trillion are not sustainable. Can anyone offer a more exact upper bound?
Some questions I'd ask.

Do you know what percent of land on Earth is habitable?

Now subtract the arable land from the habitable land, that should give you an idea of the maximum amount of land can be occupied without taking any other limits into consideration. Calculate how much food the arable land can produce, and that should give you an idea of how many people optimally can be fed a healthy diet, again without taking any limits into account.

Now calculate where your people can live, their proximity to food and water, how food and water could be transported to the people that don't have immediate access. Now calculate how that food can be transported to your people and at what cost to the available habitable land space, environment and resources.

This is just scratching the tip of the iceburg. Where are these people going to work? Where is money going to come from? Who is going to provide the healthcare they need and where is the healthcare and who pays for it?

What about nature and the environment? Surely not all habitable land can be taken by humans. Where will the trash go? Where will the animals live?

Have any of you read the UN's paper "Livestock's long shadow"?

http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
 
  • #31
I agree with both parts of this http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html" , regardless of population:
Simon in Wired said:
"This is my long-run forecast in brief," says Simon. "The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards.

"I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse."
 
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  • #32
Consideration of only the current amount of arable land and per capita food production from it, and naively nothing else, leads to the conclusion that at least the current population of six billion is sustainable, indefinitely.
 
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  • #34
mheslep said:
Consideration of only the current amount of arable land and per capita food production from it, and naively nothing else, leads to the conclusion that at least the current population of six billion is sustainable, indefinitely.

It's actually almost 7 billion right now, and the population is increasing, so what is your point?

We can't control weather, arable land is decreasing.

Disregard the pest control, I'm just using this because it shows the FAO charts I was looking for.

The struggle for food

Furthermore, the world population is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. It rose from 3.0 billion in 1960 to 6.5 billion in 2005 – and by 2030 there will be approximately 8.3 billion people living on our planet. Supplying these people with food constitutes a growing challenge. To make things even more difficult, whilst the need for food is increasing, the amount of available farmland per capita is continually shrinking. In 2005, there was still 2,200m² (2,630 square yards) of farmland available to supply the needs of one human being. By 2030 there will only be 1,800m² (2,150 square yards).
continued... See charts.

http://www.agro.basf.com/agr/AP-Internet/en/content/competences/health_and_nature/index
 
  • #35
Mr Simon is just as bad as Ray kurzweil, extrapolating a trend forever, while ignoring the evidence to the contrary.

Question: Is India the only large nation left in the world with a fertility rate significantly above the replacement rate of 2.1?
You forgot Nigeria and Pakistan
 
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  • #38
mheslep said:
Percent of available agricultural land seems to be holding about steady worldwide, with some countries noticeably up, others down.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...98324800000&tend=1279512000000&hl=en&dl=en_US

edpell said:
Evo, I see you are into gardening. How much land does it take to feed one person per year let say on a no meat, no milk and no eggs if that helps diet? I guess this varies by latitude and water supply (nothing is simple).
I garden, it doesn't make me an expert on agriculture, which is why I defer to offical results. It depends greatly on what the crop is. Some crops take a great deal of land and provide little food and vice versa.

mheslep, here is the current map showing what percentage of a countries land is arable. Deforestation of rainforests temporarily increases arable land.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arable_land_percent_world.png
 
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  • #39
Evo said:
It's actually almost 7 billion right now, and the population is increasing, so what is your point?
The OP wants to determine sustainable population which must have a complex answer, dependent on many factors. Solving complex problems using means breaking them down into solvable parts. One has to start someplace, and the OP (or you?) mentioned arable land. Well, looking only statically at the problem we know, visibly, that the current amount of land available today supports the population today.

We can't control weather, arable land is decreasing.
Perhaps you mean per capita arable. http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex..._US&dl=en_US&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5&icfg". And even if it was declining, once one allows a dynamic variable we have to ask about other dynamic variables such as food production per capita, which has increased almost every year since 1950, as the Science reference above indicates (Table 2)
 
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  • #40
Hells said:
You forgot Nigeria and Pakistan
Yep, thanks. Nigeria 158M and fertility rate 5.6. Trouble ahead there.
 
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  • #41
from http://tinyfarmwiki.com/index.php?title=How_much_land_to_feed_one_person?
we have this calculation
"An interesting article on agricultural land use takes this approach. It's assumed that humans need 3,000 calories per day. That figure is applied to a study of agricultural land used for all the food eaten in the Netherlands. For example, potato is the most efficient crop, and according to the study requires 0.2 square meters to produce 1kg, which contains 800 calories. It would therefore take 274m2 to produce enough calories for one person for one year. That's an area less than 10m x 30m (about 33 x 100 ft). To get 3000 calories from vegetables other than potatoes requires 1314m2, eggs 2395m2, and at the high end, beef 8173."

Using the 274m2 and the total land area of the planet (yes some is unusable but on the other hand there are food resource from the oceans this is just an order of magnitude calculation) 1.5E14m2 we get 5.5E11 or 550 billion. Can we accept this as an upper bound?
 
  • #42
mheslep said:
Well, looking only statically at the problem we know, visibly, that the current amount of land available today supports the population today.

If there is no soil erosion, no depletion of nutrients in the soil from use, no pollution of the soil from any source and similar statements for the fisheries then you have a point the carrying capacity is at or above today's 7 billion. Your statement is that today 7 billion are feed. Do you feel this can be continued for say 100 years?
 
  • #43
edpell said:
If there is no soil erosion, no depletion of nutrients in the soil from use, no pollution of the soil from any source and similar statements for the fisheries then you have a point the carrying capacity is at or above today's 7 billion. Your statement is that today 7 billion are feed. Do you feel this can be continued for say 100 years?
Looking at the past and projecting it forward, yes, I think so, barring politically driven economic upsets (e.g. Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, etc).

BTW, the amount of effort and land it takes to feed someone has changed over time, drastically.
Example: labor hours require to produce 100 bushels of wheat, US:
1830: 250-300 labor-hours (5 acres)
1890: 40-50 labor-hours (5 acres)
1930: 15-20 labor-hours (5 acres)
1955: 6 1/2 labor-hours (4 acres)
1965: 5 labor-hours (3 acres)
1975: 3-3/4 labor-hours (3 acres)
1987: 3 labor-hours (3 acres)
and in 2007, 100 bushels of wheat were grown organically on one acre.

So while the US population increased 25x, the labor productivity increased 300x plus.
http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=5704
 
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  • #44
mheslep said:
Looking at the past and projecting it forward, yes, I think so, barring politically driven economic upsets (e.g. Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, etc).

BTW, the amount of effort and land it takes to feed someone has changed over time, drastically.
Example: labor hours require to produce 100 bushels of wheat, US:
1830: 250-300 labor-hours (5 acres)
1890: 40-50 labor-hours (5 acres)
1930: 15-20 labor-hours (5 acres)
1955: 6 1/2 labor-hours (4 acres)
1965: 5 labor-hours (3 acres)
1975: 3-3/4 labor-hours (3 acres)
1987: 3 labor-hours (3 acres)
and in 2007, 100 bushels of wheat were grown organically on one acre.

So while the US population increased 25x, the labor productivity increased 300x plus.
http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=5704
That's due to machinery, pesticides and fertilizers. It's not going to continue to get better. Imo, the push towards organic produce is pushing yields back a century. The refusal of countries to use GM seed is counterproductive.

Look at the worldwide starvation, it's obvious that we have neither the means nor the desire to feed the current world's population.

Not to mention, how will people find jobs? Where are they going to get money? Where are they going to get medical help?

Answer - we can't support the current world population. It's not happening.

Once the current world's problems are solved and we have an excess of everything, then come back and we can rationally discuss if we can handle more people.
 
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  • #45
i think it will ultimately depend on the availability of cheap energy. once cheap energy becomes scarce, so will crop yields. food spoilage will also go up. but if energy continues to be plentiful, the current population is sustainable for some time.
 
  • #47
Are we really thinking that the only problem of too many people is how to feed them? Heck, we can set them up in warehouses with a feeding tube to support life if that's the only problem.

Food is only one of many problems, how will people find jobs? Where are they going to get money? Where are they going to get medical help? Where are they going to live? How can we wipe out natural environments without destroying the planet?
 
  • #48
as we are able to live longer and longer we will certainly start having very serious problems I think. Especially when we get to the point when people will be able to live for as long as they want essentially, when that happens we will have to start shooting people into space or something.
 
  • #49
maybe the question is really what population of hipsters can the planet support?
 
  • #50
The diversity of positions surprises me. It is clear we will reach no consensus. Time will tell.
 

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