Talk:Overpopulation/Archive 4

Globio info and map
I'm very interested in including the information available at GLOBIO website, including this map, which highlights the true extent of human influence on the planet. What is the best way to put this in? Is it freely available in any way? AniRaptor2001 (talk) 18:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Requested move to "Human overpopulation"

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move the page  Ron h jones (Talk) 00:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason that the word "overpopulation" should, by itself and by default (be implied by Wikipedia to) apply only to humans.

That choice of title reflects a subjective, humancentric systemic bias.--Tyranny Sue (talk) 04:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Support as it is also used frequently to refer to animals. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 05:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No ambiguity. Oppose a move until the animal overpopulation articles are created.  Of course there's a "humancentric systemic bias."  The vast majority of Wikipedia's readers are human and there have been no complaints from the non-humans (yet). —   AjaxSmack   04:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Population comes from the Latin word populatio, meaning a people. So in its nature population, and by extension overpopulation, is describing groups of people. Any instances where it is used about animals it must have been borrowed from the the meaning referring to people. And in any event, it is quite clear that overpopulation about humans is primary topic over Overpopulation in wild animals and Overpopulation in companion animals.TheFreeloader (talk) 05:49, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Effects on Standard of Living and Ecology
Standard of Living

One aspect of overpopulation that is generally disregarded in debates is the assumed externality that will be experienced almost exclusively in First World countries. Researchers such as Anup Shah posit that as the population of a given first world region increases, the standard of living for each individual in that region will decrease (Shah, 1998). Studies conducted using persons and animals have been revealed that as a given population increases, individuals experience greater stress and experience difficulty when interacting with others. Shah also notes that humans in particular would have to deal with overcrowding at places such as beaches and marketplaces, severe competition for employment, greater amounts of traffic, as well as new governmental regulations (1998). Technology advocates maintain that human ingenuity will evolve to compensate for a “low” standard of living – this, usually referring to a lack of food. Shah notes this, but speculates that such food will most probably consist of grain – a diet severely lacking in basic human nutritional needs.

Ecology

One aspect of overpopulation that is proving to have detrimental effects on the environment is a loss of biodiversity. Executive Director of the Novartis Foundation and economist, Klaus Leisinger notes the importance of tropical diversity of biodiversity for the food security of certain indigenous people, and also how a crossbreeding of certain species as being vital to global nutrition. Three hundred species of plant in tropical Asia are destroyed every year (Leisinger, Schmitt, Pandya-Lorch, 2002). Tropical forests are suffering the worst from the destructive forces of man than any other ecosystem on Earth. Leisinger also supports that if the current disposition of species destruction continues unabated, it is expected that the Earth will lose 10-50 percent of all species in the following fifty years (2002). Another endangered species is essentially an ecosystem within itself: coral reef. Though coral reefs occupy only one percent of the total ocean floor, they are the natural environments to 25% of all marine species. Due to increases in population, and the resultant increase of carbon dioxide output, ocean acidification continues to increasingly dissolve these vital ecosystems. Many believe that coral reefs do not provide to human interests at all. Reefs are responsible for keeping coastal tsunamis at bay in some regions, as well as yielding nearly 6 million tons of fish each year (2002). These reefs are incredibly important to human interests. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.138.64.130 (talk) 22:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"physicists agree that there are billions of years of nuclear fuel available.[52]" is an obvious lie
so obvious I won't insult your intelligence by explaining why —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.130.179 (talk) 06:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the reference given in the article is from a physicist (Cohen), and his reasoning seems quite plausible. So, before you "insult" the editor who claimed this (not me, by the way), it would be nice if you DID "explain why" it is a lie, e.g. by giving a reference to a physicist disagreeing with Cohen.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:23, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a plentiful stockpile of uranium on earth. judging how to scale a nuclear plant is more economic and safe than coal with construction of such plants restarting world wide I don't see the point of this section. I think it should be it 79.176.49.28 (talk) 17:48, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Third world overpopulation
Why isn't this article mentions that almost all overpopulation and youth bulges occur in the third world as defined by it's article. 79.176.49.28 (talk) 17:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Overpopulation IS a fact

 * (Editorial comments, December 2010: By mistake, this section was split; most of it was archived with a false heading in Archive 3; see this for the re-collected thread archive.) JoergenB (talk) 03:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Carrying Capacity section is flawed.
For starters, 'Carrying Capacity' (CC) is the level of population that can be held indefinitely. Estimates of population that is based on things like growth, water and irrigable land do not count as an estimate of CC. The entire picture over a very long span must be analyzed. The citations in the first paragraph are not adequate. They neglect the most important of resources which is fossil fuels. Secondly I have never heard of a real study putting the human CC at 16 billion. This is so much over the top that I consider it to be vandalism. The general population may believe that population growth can continue infinitely but no rational scientist believes this. I will say this again - Carrying capacity is the population that is sustainable! Not 50 - 100 years from now. Not with miraculous unknown technology. It is the population that can exist when fossil and nuclear fuels are used up or too expensive ENERGETICALLY to mine. Other resources such as trees, marine life, phosphorus (for fertilizer) have to be included to give an adequate assessment. I am going to fix it because its flawed. --66.223.168.45 (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Effects of Overpopulation tag
That last effect of population of the list didn't have any citations supporting it. I added the tag to bring attention so that a reference can be provided, or the statement can be discussed, or etc.  Thekappen (talk) 02:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Overpopulation of primary consumers.
If there was a overpopulation of primary consumers there would be less plants in life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.203.20.74 (talk) 17:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What? Zazaban (talk) 02:34, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Overpopulation
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Overpopulation's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "UN": From Philippines:  From Israel:  From World population:  From Developing country:  From Thailand:  From Vietnam:  From Malthusian catastrophe:  <li>From Mexico City: </li> <li>From Singapore: </li> <li>From List of countries and territories by fertility rate: </li> <li>From United Kingdom: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 07:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * This is now fixed. the text with the ref came from World population. - Salamurai (talk) 05:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Steve Jones quote is out of context and irrelevant
The Times quote from Steve Jones is lifted from an article on mutation rates and human evolution. The factor of 10,000 merely reflects how quickly the human population has grown as a result of agriculture and is not a statement about sustainable capacity.

This quote should be removed. Oleary t (talk) 13:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

optimistic is an opinion
"At the time, the world population stood at 5.5 billion, and optimistic scenarios predicted a peak of 7.8 billion by 2050, a number that current estimates show will be reached around 2030."

Optimistic is a subjective statement, with which I certainly do not agree and should be removed to preserve objectivity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.112.163.174 (talk)
 * Population control advocates view humans primarily as consumers of resources. A much more accurate view is that people consume but they also produce to varying degrees. A larger population can bring problems but it can also bring benefits too. Jarwulf (talk) 02:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

2050 North American Population Projections
Those projections for North America dont seem logical if the United states alone would account for 439-450Million of the population, then how would the population of North America only be 440million? what happened to Canada and Mexico? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.247.166.29 (talk) 21:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

major revision
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?

Generally the contributors to this seem to understand that overpopulation consists of two things, 1) how many people there are and 2) how many of them the environment can sustain. Over population is the condition where there are more people than the environment can sustain (this answers question #1 above, and nobody seems to disagree with this statement). Therefore the current overpopulation wiki article has a lot of facts regarding the past, present, and estimated numbers of people. It also has facts regarding what the environment can sustain. That seems reasonable, however, consider the following:


 * If an organism is consuming resources faster than those resources can renew, those resources will become scarce.
 * If those resources are essential for survival of that organism or essential for the maintenance of the numbers of that organism, then the population numbers of that organism cannot be sustained.
 * 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.

I suspect many will read this and say "but the united states inhabitants are well fed and clearly not overpopulated!". The response is simple: the resources have not become scarce yet. Many will follow up with "But we can use bio-fuels and solar for example". Maybe we can, and when we do 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 answers question #3, but it is not very interesting because it doesn't answer whether we will succeed, or whether it is technically possible. If we attempt to answer these questions we will certainly need a truck load of scientific study and references. I have no ambition to attempt to answer this, and it really isn't necessary, as you'll see from the following.


 * The planet cannot sustain an infinite number of humans.
 * Therefore there is a limit to the number of people the planet can support (just restating the previous sentence).
 * It takes two people to make a new person.
 * Therefore each human's number is replaced when they have two children, because each parent claims half of each child as their replacement.
 * Only adults make babies, and I will call non-adults "children". (these are just my definitions for the sake of brevity)
 * Therefore, at the limit of what the planet or region or country can can provide for, only two children can make it to adulthood for every two adults. For example, if every adult creates three children (or if the average number of children produced per adult is three), and if the population cannot grow because we are at the limit of what the planet can sustain, then one of every three children will die. It does not matter how they will die: war, malnutrition, disease, whatever, nature doesn't care.
 * If the adults average more than two children (in other words, if the birth rate is above two), and the children don't die (i.e. they become adults), then the population grows. If this birth rate is maintained long enough, the population limit will be reached and the childhood deaths must rise to wipe out the birthrate above two (clearly I need a more efficient phrasing to explain that "above two" concept).
 * Thus, if a birth rate above two is maintain sufficiently long enough, then children will die.
 * If the adults average less than two children, the population declines.

There are several conclusions that can easily be drawn.


 * 1) We must not maintain a birth rate above two. (this answers #4 above) In order to maintain a specific birth rate, it must be managed. If it is managed, then it can be set to less than two just as easily in order to reduce the population.
 * 2) If we are consuming resources faster than they renew, then we are overpopulated (see above), and therefore we must set the birthrate below two long enough to bring the population down to where we are not consuming resources faster than they renew.
 * 3) We might be able to discover how to use only renewable resources and feed the current population, but all for nothing, if we don't maintain a birthrate of two.
 * 4) We have maintained a birth rate above two for a very long time, indeed the human birthrate of the whole planet has never been below two. (reference something here) Which means that children have been dying as a consequence of the the birth rate we have maintained. This is true, but I challenge anyone to find someone that states it this way. You'll find every explanation of birth rates and replacement rates along the lines of "the birth rate needs to be X to maintain a stable population, because the replacement rate is X." This statement is correct, but it obscures the correct message which is that we must maintain a birth rate at or below two.

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)

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
 * I imagine that may mean that the current rate of growth is 74 million people per year, and if the population grows and the fertility rate remains the same, then the rate of growth in 205o will be 169 million people per year. In any case, the best thing is to check the source and make sure it's properly represented.   Will Beback    talk    08:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Also - it is claimed that the world population remained constant at 250 million in the 750 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, when several other sources (including some on the page) show this to be highly unlikely and essentially incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.127.14 (talk) 02:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

major revision
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)

Overpopulation Inbreeding
For my contribution on inbreeding due to the strange evolutionary pressures of unusual population expansion (or invasion) refer to the discussion section of Wikipedia's "Inbreeding" listing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.42.184.90 (talk) 00:18, 13 February 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)

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)


 * I actually happen to agree that most public discourse on overpopulation is junk science. It's not a real problem now, and it will be less of a problem in the future as more countries become economically developed and their birth rates fall. My opinion doesn't really matter here though. There are lots of people carrying on about overpopulation, and that means that their views should be reported in this article. I just urge the rest of you to think critically about whether there is a real population problem.137.22.99.108 (talk) 04:34, 1 November 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)


 * You should read "Stand on Zanzibar." It's a very good scifi novel set in an overpopulated world. The title derives from the fact that, given a few square feet per person, the entire human population could fit on the island of Zanzibar.137.22.99.108 (talk) 04:39, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Needs checking!
OK someone needs to proofread better. Nauru does not have 10 million people. And 17->22.6 is not a 33% increase. There's no point in an article that is largely figures if the figures aren't reliable! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.200.17.52 (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 17->22.6 is a 33% increase. (22.6-17)/17 = 32.94. EryZ (talk) 06:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Too much/messy data
I think the data tables we have on population are too detailed, messy and not clear and unambiguous. It is too detailed because this is an article on overpopulation, not 'human population over history with respect to individual countries'. Individual population numbers for countries can very well be omitted, for a percentage change table will be shorter, more concise, and conveys the intent of the section better than laborious numbers. We can't really do a percentage change in population table for every country in the world, so maybe just a select few from different continents to give the general gust of 1. population has risen a lot recently, 2. most significant in Africa, not so much in Europe. The huge amount of numbers and countries in the 1960s to 2010 population table is really very messy and doesn't contribute to the article much at all. Countries are seemingly chosen at random, and some countries' data is not very useful anyway because of country merges and splits etc (as described in notes section). Also the intermediate dates are rather redundant, the most important data is the beginning (1960) and the end (2010). http://www.iea.org/co2highlights/co2Highlights.pdf, pg 85 is most useful here to describe population changes. One of the tables is ambiguous (at least for me): the 'Population (1000 million) and growth 1990–2008 (%)' one. The years linked to the country names don't really make any sense to me and it seems very similar to the 'Population growth  1990–2008 (%)' table, not sure why they are separate tables to be honest. In summary: An example of a good table would be the 'Population growth 1990–2009 (%)' for 'World', 'Asia' etc. P.S. The two green tables for individual countries use the same ref as the green table above it, the one linked above, but the two green tables for individual countries have not been updated to the newer data, whereas the other green table (the one on the world, asia etc) has been. This is evident as the updated one has 1990 to 2009, whereas the non-updates ones still have 1990 to 2008. EryZ (talk) 01:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Remove, merge, and/or shrink tables. Too much data, not contributing to article.
 * 2) Prefer a direct 'date1' to 'date2' format, instead of 'date1' to 'date2' to 'date3' etc.
 * 3) Use percentage change, not population numbers.
 * 4) Choose minimal amount of countries/locations for use here, but still representative of changes in the world.
 * Agreed. Per-country data is pretty much irrelevant in the context of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitch Ames (talk • contribs) 15:38, 25 December 2011‎
 * I'll see what I can do in the coming weeks. Bit busy lately. EryZ (talk) 22:08, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

This article is way too long and all contributors have missed the obvious
Think about the definition: "where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat." How is it possible for an organism to exceed the carrying capacity? There is only one way. The organism must consume resources faster than they renew. To put it in simple terms, there must be a pile of food that the organism is eating down faster than food is added to that pile.

Humans have a huge pile of food and are eating it faster than it renews. That bulk of that "pile of food" is fossil fuels. Scientists make the mental error of thinking that oil, coal, uranium, are not food. They are as good as food, because we must burn those resources in order to grow, harvest, package, store, and distribute food for 7 billion humans. If we do not burn those resources, we collectively have no clue how to feed 7 billion. We don't need to figure out what a sustainable population level might be, because this logic proves we are way beyond sustainable. The correct course of action is clear. We humans must get our numbers down to where we are not consuming resources, that are essential to provide for our numbers, faster than they renew. The only way to do that is to ensure we average fewer than 2 children.

In short, if the definition of overpopulation is as stated on the article, then the article should consist of only the above paragraphs. However, my understanding of Wikipedia is that it is supposed to show the conventional wisdom, and that means the article is fine. It correctly shows the confused thinking that happens to be the general consensus on this topic.

We must figure out how to change that reality. We must figure out how to get the scientific community to comprehend the simple logic described above. Please contact me, John Taves, to help figure out how to get this concept peer reviewed and published. My info is on stopattwo.org. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johntaves (talk • contribs) 01:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not an expert on this subject, and very much far from it. Your explanation does seem solid to me. However, I cannot see how your explanation shows that the article contains 'confused thinking' or is too long. I can see no reason why a section on 'carrying capacity', which is part of the definition which you have supported, is unnecessary. Nor a section on population growths over history and projections, which although I believe was originally too cumbersome with unnecessary tables (see discussion above), but since I have removed those tables, it seems like a much better section now. The article indeed does focus on our consumption of resources and food, there is a large section on 'food' under the heading of 'resources', along with a section on 'fossil fuels'. In fact, I believe this article is near perfectly congruent with the views you have put forward, so I do not see how this article contains confused thinking. I would suggest that you build on this article and improve it yourself; that might make it more clear to us what the problem seems to be for you. Also, please refrain from promoting your cause (however true and just it may be) on Wikipedia talk pages, there are much better sites to do that on. Thanks. EryZ (talk) 22:43, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The conventional wisdom is the problem, not the article that accurately reflects the pathetic conventional wisdom. The section on carrying capacity is fine, but how can any of these scientists make these estimates? To estimate a sustainable population number, you have to figure out how a world economy that does not burn fossil fuels or uranium would function, and determine how much sustenance can be acquired. Why would any scientist be so arrogant to think they can determine that? What are these estimates? The number of people that can be sustained using today's technology, but without burning oil, coal, gas, uranium, etc? We cannot possibly get to that state, so what is the point of such a silly estimate? We can't wave a wand an shut off the use of fossil fuels. Maybe they are estimating the number of people that can be sustained in the future after those resources have become scarce (or unused), which means they think they know the future technologies that will be discovered and how efficient they will be at providing for our numbers. That estimate would clearly be bogus and thus no peer scientist should give them the time of day to publish that nonsense. You'd have to go back to the late 1800s to see humans not depending on oil to provide their food, and that population level was 1.5 billion, and coal was certainly being used back then. The Global Footprint Network says that in 1987 the Earth Overshoot Day was December 19. The last time I checked, humans were consuming fossil fuels in every country and for the whole year and those fuels were absolutely essential for providing all the meals needed in 1987. How could they possibly estimate that we overshot by only 12 days (3%)? They simply do not comprehend that all fossil fuels and uranium and a host of other resources are off limits.Johntaves (talk) 17:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The OTHER Solution
So things about "family planning" and all that have been included... but where is the section for mass population-culling? It strikes me as a rather conspicuous oversight that simply reducing the population directly by killing off two thirds of it (or more) isn't mentioned anywhere. I'm sure the required tools (i.e. weapons) to do so aren't themselves in short supply... and I'm sure there are enough folks willing to do so for it to work out. The solution is so obvious that I suspect there is some sort of reason it isn't included on the page. Mind sharing what that reason is? ~ SotiCoto (talk) 12:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * surely its a global freemason conspiracy!!!! Shhh.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.246.220.59 (talk) 07:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The sections for "mass population-culling" is still waiting for the reliable sources that we need. Mitch Ames (talk)

It is clear that ...
I removed the words "it is clear that", on the grounds that it is editorialising, and contrary to WP:EDITORIAL (which mentions "clearly" explicitly), but Paul venter undid my edit with no explanation. My wording may not have been the best - and perhaps it was not accurate - but I still think we should not say "it is clear", unless we are quoting a cited source (which we don't currently appear to be). Paul, and others, is there alternative wording that says what we want to accurately without editorialising? Mitch Ames (talk) 09:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that clearly "clearly" does not belong in Wikipedia articles. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Picture of crowded Dhaka street
First off, I admit being guilty of WP:POINT by replacing the picture of a crowded Dhaka (Bangladesh) street with one of a crowded New York street. I won't do that again. But still, I think my point has been well illuminated by my fellow editor's revert commentary: "New York, though crowded, does not exceed its carrying capactiy". Well then, how exactly does Dhaka, though crowded, exceed its carrying capacity? On what grounds can we use a Bangladesh street scene, or a dilapidated house in Egypt, as a generic illustration for the term overpopulation, but not a street scene from the western world? I don't think this is an appropriate way to illustrate this article. -- Seelefant (talk) 20:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The Western world, and much of the East, has the ability to feed all of its people, and the population is either falling or growing only slightly. In the United States, for example, the birth rate is 14 per 1000 population and the infant mortality rate 6.5 per 1000 live births.  In Bangladesh the birth rate is 30 per 1000 population, and the infant mortality rate is 62.6 per 1000 live births. Rick Norwood (talk) 23:54, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * So, overpopulation is a problem that does only exist in certain countries (as opposed to being a global problem), and can be visualized by picking random scenes of overcrowded streets and dilapidated houses from these countries? What would those individuals from Bangladesh think if they new a photo of them was used to visualize overpopulation? I really think we can't do that. -- Seelefant (talk) 08:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

On the one hand, I sympathise with your desire not to insult anybody by calling their country overpopulated. But pretending a problem doesn't exist, to avoid hurting people's feelings, makes it difficult to solve that problem. With an infant mortality rate almost ten times that in the West, Bengladesh has a real problem, and that problem is overpopulation. What would people in Bengladesh think about this Wikipedia article? I don't know. But I do know that Wikipedia deals in verifiable facts, and cannot ignore facts because they are unpleasant. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Population growth and infant mortality rates of country X are verifiable facts, but that overpopulation would be their cause is rather an opinion. Bangladesh is overpopulated? Says who? By what definition? You keep telling me that these are facts because they are facts. This is not really satisfactory. In my opinion, neither of both pictures show overpopulation. One of them shows a house, the other one a crowded street and a market. I don't think you can actually take a photo of overpopulation. -- Seelefant (talk) 19:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that you can't take a "picture of overpopulation". But you can take a picture of an overpopulated country. The definition of overpopulation is when the population exceeds the carrying capacity. Since people generally try to keep their children from dying, high infant mortality is a sign that the country lacks resources it needs. And a high birth rate indicates that an already overpopulated country (not enough resources to care for its children) is becoming more overpopulated. But you don't need to take my word for it. Here's a reference. Too Many People by Angus and Butler, p. 94, "Bangladesh is one of the world's most densly populated nations".Rick Norwood (talk) 20:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It's densely populated, yes, but that it would be, as a particular country, overpopulated, I would dispute. Quoting from carrying capacity: "The application of the concept of carrying capacity for the human population has been criticized for not successfully capturing the multi-layered processes between humans and the environment ... and that it often has a blame-the-victim framework" - the last part being pretty much in the vein of what I'm trying to say all along. Also, what does the given picture of a Egyptian house, no matter how dilapidated, do to illustrate the concept of overpopulation even when fully agreeing with your train of thought. A house, in Egypt, can be dilapidated for many reasons, and a street in Bangladesh can be crowded for many reasons. -- Seelefant (talk) 20:47, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not trying to "blame" anybody. That Bangladesh is overpopulated is a fact supported by references. Nobody is saying that it is (or that it isn't) their fault that they are overpopulated. Just that it is a fact. Rick Norwood (talk) 21:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the "blaming" in that quote is not to be taken literally. Also, I was going to ask you for a source for the fact that Bangladesh is overpopulated, however, I quickly googled one myself . Still, I think the illustration of this article is not really felicitous. -- Seelefant (talk) 06:23, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

good edits
Thanks to 76.232.212.190 and Materialscientist for excellent edits. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)