Is the real problem in the global community overpopulation?

Question

Socially (and that includes economically) the world is undergoing a transition. It is often stated that the world's resources cannot sustain a China or India, for example, with the economic prowess of the United States. Familiar phrases that are thrown around are "energy crisis" and "environmental crisis". It would seem, however, that the fundamental issue that is common to all these social crises is huge demand relative to resource supply. This leads some people to contend that the REAL issue is global overpopulation.

On the other hand, without a growing population developed countries cannot continue the process of innovation which generates increased economic efficiency and developing countries may not have the intellectual resources (smaller pool) to grow, as well. Furthermore, outside of a single country (such as China), it is difficult to enforce population controls.

The question then is: Is the real problem globally overpopulation and if so, how can we fix it?

Answer 1

I don't believe that we are headed for an overpopulation crisis. The argument for such a thing has been around for hundreds of years. One of the first economists to address this was Thomas Malthus. He stated that the population was growing at such a rate that resources would not sustain them. This argument was given two hundred years ago. That problem has not arisen yet, mainly because people tend to overlook some simple things. Technology changes. Malthus assumed that technology would remain the same, and thus the food supply was relatively fixed. In order to get more food, more acres would have to be used, and since land is fixed, then the food supply was fixed by this. We now know that this is not the case. New technologies are being developed all the time to make crops yield larger harvests and more resilient crops. Thus, the food supply can grow alongside the population. Other resources are able to be stretched, with new technology allowing materials once thought unusable to be used or obtained. Innovation has kept overpopulation from being a problem in the past, and I expect that this will continue into the future.

Answer 2

we live in a industrial society. So we need factories and all those other things to help us keep us satisfyied.The problem is that that brings more carbon dioxide into our earth giving us global warming. The more our population grows the more factories we need to build to satisfy more people. the more people we have. the more trees we have to cut down which doesn't help our earth. We are also running out of land. Sure volcanos can produce land but because of the global warming are glaciers are melting and the sea level is rising. If you saw the documentary from that president (forgot what it's called) 1/3 of florida will be under water. It's also making things impossible to afford. Because there is not much land to own. it is harder to own houses and land making it impossible for us to afford it. believe me i know. i almost went homeless last summer.
What we can do i belive is try to not produce as much carbon dioxide as possible. every little helps. i don't know what to do with the over populatiom though. i mean you can't tell nobody to not have kids (xcept in china) we can also try to AT LEAST regrow some trees. By the year 2050 the population of the earth will be up from 6 billion to 9 billion. I beileve we should act now. Or else our future will be skrewd over.....

Answer 3

I do imagine overpopulation is a special problem. notwithstanding, i do not imagine it really is the biggest problem with reference to international warming. the US don't have the optimal birthrate, notwithstanding it makes use of the most factors. many countries in Africa have a really intense birthrate, yet do not use many resouces. it really is what percentage absolutely everyone makes use of. If each individual used as many factors because the final American, we would run out fantastically without delay. That said, with all the droughts, foodstuff shortages, power shortages, and organic failures were are likely dealing with interior the drawing close many years, it would help if human beings had smaller households truly than huge ones.

Answer 4

No... Language barriers are the major problem. Anyone can grow , raise or catch food if need be,and/or anyone can adapt to another culture if they could understand it. As populations grow the distance between them lessens and issues of who needs and who supplies become more complex, all requiring communication,not by leaders but by common man in a common language.
People become stuck to an area or situation because of language.