My responses to your questions:

1. NO
2. NO
3. I favor offering painless euthanasia to the old and the sick.

Thank you, very much, Prof. Peters & Gail. I look forward to a serious discussion, here.

(Note: Prof. Peters' introductory text on population geography should probably be on the shelves of all non-specialists concerned with these matters.)

"Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion?"

Well, you could always go the route that the use of biologically harmful long term contaminants over wide spread geographical areas is going to eventually prove to be effective as a means of population control. Then pose the question is that usage intentional (and by whose intention) or is the damage to the gene pool an accidental byproduct of ignorance. You know, cite Bhopal,the Gulf of Mexico, depleted uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan, dioxins in South East Asia, contamination of the water tables as a byproduct of industrial waste in the US, unexpected ecological effects in genetic modification...that'll kick start it alright. TOD will have to get another server. Think the Old School boys would go for it? Make Zero Pop Period the new slogan.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/25/toxic-sand-another-enemy-in-afgh...
"...In a presentation at a neurotoxicology conference in Portland, Ore., earlier this month, Palur G. Gunasekar, a senior scientist with the Navy Environmental Health Effects Laboratory, said that dust kicked up in sandstorms contains manganese and other metals. "The sand is a risk factor for inducing neurotoxicity," Gunasekar said. Compounds that are neurotoxic are those that damage the nervous system or the brain...."

For the United States, the quickest way to limit population growth is a combination of reduced immigration, obesity and "uneven" medical services, with an emphasis on reduced preventive care.

Let obesity continue unchecked, reduce diabetes screening & counseling and nature will take it's course.

Cut Public Health, let drug resistant TB get a good foothold, cut back on anything related to HIV, or prenatal care and nature will do the rest.

In other words, elect Republicans ! /sarc

Alan

"Population, consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions will continue to grow until we either face up to the fact that there are limits on our finite Earth or we are confronted by a catastrophe large enough to turn us from our current course"

In response to the first discussion question, I find the above quote the most relevant. I half-worry, half-expect that it will take events resulting in unthinkable losses of human lives that will bring population management into social consciousness. Humanity has been running on the "be fruitful and multiply" dynamic. And why shouldn't it? This is a basic requirement of being an organism. You live, you mate, you die. Can we seriously adapt a "be cautious and plan" mentality without serious shifts in our world view and an examination of our most ingrained instincts? I don't think so. Not unless we get to the point where it becomes a critical reality. Where famines, rationing, and resource wars become a part of everyday life.

Unfortunately, when you talk about population management, you take a hike in an ethical minefield haunted by the ghosts of Nazi Germany and Maoist boogeymen. Our understanding of basic human rights severely handicaps our ability to even talk about it. Diamond's assertions are true. Who are we to encourage "the good life" through our lifestyles, projected around the world when we ourselves cannot support our own standard of living?

I do think it is rooted in the concept that the world is so big that it is therefore without limits. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in an island nation, where people had little concept of the world outside their shores and had trouble comprehending how their actions, for example, deforesting a landslide-prone hillside, affected their own communities let alone the global arena. Of course, it's a tough concept for anybody to grasp. I firmly believe that if we can't plan ahead, nature will correct our mistakes, in ways that will shake us to the core.

For the vast majority of the time that anatomically modern humans have existed on this planet, population did not grow exponentially. But why? After all, there wasn't birth control and males impregnated females with abandon.

The reason is simple and tragic: death rates were equal or greater than birth rates. Children died of diseases and starvation. Women died during childbirth. The crippled couldn't keep up and were left behind. There was no such thing as old age or retirement. In spite of this, human beings went on to occupy every habitat on earth (interesting species, aren't we?)

Fossil fuels allowed everybody to be fed, children to get vaccines, and people to get drugs and chemotherapy and surgeries and, quite naturally, our population has expanded exponentially.

I don't quite think we have it in us to control birth rates. It goes against millenia of biological evolution. Which means that death rates have to increase. Four Horsemen it is.

Of course, find the people who don't have any children and who commit suicide, and you will have found the only people who are truly serious about human overpopulation.

I don't have any children, but I certainly don't have any plans to commit suicide (and in fact would like to have children some day), so I'm as guilty as everybody else.

Anything other than the above is idle conversation.

Wow, Bacevich, Berry, Abbey, McKibben--you've cited many of my favorite authors.

There is no question that population is one of the two most important vital issues to be addressed, the other being consumption.

I think the first world should make a deal with the rest of the world--we will cut our consumption and ff use by 80% in ten years if the rest of the world cut population growth to below replacement levels in that time.

I don't think that either is possible, but that would set things in their proper perspective.

It is no mystery why population is a difficult subject.

Anyone truly and deeply worried about it should knock on their neighbor's door and ask them:

whether they are having sex,
how often,
what protection they are using,
why the man hasn't gotten snipped
and why the woman hasn't had her tubes tied...

Reception to such messages are sure to be about as warm as those approaching a Hummer driver and suggesting they get a Geo Metro or a bicycle.

Really, the most effective measure is educating women and insuring that they have political power and power over their own bodies.

I don't see any way around the problem of people loosing social security and other services as fewer people are there in the younger generation for support. It is a good reason for encouraging better health among the elderly on the one hand, and for scaling back on heroic measures to save lives of the very elderly when this dooms them to totally dependent lives (and I speak as one with two very elderly, beloved parents.) More elderly in good shape could be employed in taking care of their more sickly colleagues.

A policy goal which if successfully achieved could immediately lower population and move us quickly to much lower total population levels--the goal that people postpone having their first child until they are in their thirties, and then have only one.

If incentives can be successfully put in place to achieve this goal, population would start dropping immediately and dramatically. As the first cohort moves into their thirties, the rate of drop may decrease, but many will decide not to have the child after all, others will become infertile or will die...There must be an information barrage (dare I say propaganda campaign) to emphasize the down sides of having more people in the world and the advantages of controlling population.

A serious question, maybe the most serious of all, and one with no easy answer. For there is a crux - it would difficult enough to implement and educate the "western world" to the concept of a one-child mother, safe in a society where a child does not serve the family, but serves the masses; where education, or opportunity, or simple economics means that such a child will most likely be gainfully employed - maybe, and even, as their parents grow old and in need of return financial nurture.

However, the "western world" is but 10 - 15% of the world's population. The rest of the world has little or no means of supporting such an ideal. Think - there are people out there, billions of them, who owe their very existence to the fact that large families offer security, firewood, water and food. Breeding large families allows for some insurance in the event of decease, and means a comfortable old age, surrounded by many generations of loved ones, all of whom care for you. How will you persuade them ?

Compare that with us, the civilised "western world", where we rush through life and throw our old onto the shoulders of carers who have neither a moral nor a social obligation to bring a smile to their charges.

Whatever change we try to bring about, it will require a balancing act worthy of Solomon's tenure.

There is some hope in the fact that many of the pollutants that spew into the environment are hormonally disruptive to human biology. Perhaps that represents a form of feedback loop to reduce human overpopulation.

Would that we were to take a proactive stance rather than be the victims of the circuitous and unintended consequences of our behavior. I guess that is too much for which to hope. At least it has been so far.

Population growth MUST and will stop, but only through cataclysm. The giant slums/shanty towns of less developed nations experience population growth despite the clear and visible ramifications of it. I am reminded of the words of my fundamentalist ex mother-in-law "God has everything under control" to which I replied "Are you ready when God decides to take you out indiscriminately?"

The juggernaut that was the Chinese government under Mao could not stop population growth.

As soon as the general population gets a hint that population is even an issue and that reduction is necessary all hell will break lose.

Methodology is meaningless unless it is imposed in secret (conspiracy theory warning) something like a massive, grinding economic depression with food and energy shortages, maybe squeeze in an epidemic if possible.

To your impressive list of references you might consider adding "the Poverty of Nations-A Political Economy of Hunger and Population," by William Murdoch.

Take home lessons: Look at the role, literacy and education level, and job opportunities for women. Even poor areas/countries which have focused on these issues have witnessed lowered birthrates. He mentions, specifically, Sri Lanka, Kerala in South India and Costa Rica as cases in point.

Since I have lived almost 20 years in a rural area of Costa Rica, I have seen the changes as the 'opportunity cost' kicks in and women with more than 2 children would have to stay home rather than getting a relatively secure job--even if it is cleaning the homes of retired gringos.Needless to say, access to contraception and an early education on the facts of life are also extremely important.

It is a huge and complex issue, but let's not leave out any of the important details. The work by Murdoch is a good read and vital for anyone who pretends to understand what is going on in the poorer agricultural societies of our planet. Published in 1980, he was already calling for more widespread use of solar, bio-gasification, etc. on 3rd world farms.

Peters' future is hard to imagine. A fictional account by Jean Raspail, Camp of the Saints, makes for unnerving reading. Thought provoking. See reviews

Anyone ever see the movie "Idiocracy"?

Start with the schools. If children are instilled with the sense of 'overshoot', they will carry that understanding into adulthood, and it could change everything. It needs to be talked about, and children need to hear it discussed. Teach them early and often. It will make an impact in a world where all strive for autonomy, to then be able to apply one's knowledge of the true state of the world when making an individual choice. It does come down to the individual.

If we cannot stabilize population and if we cannot stabilize climate, there is not an ecosystem on earth we can save...
*********
Save for what??? A changed climate will just reshuffle evolutionary pressures to different but just as valid ecosystems. I suspect that we are near "Peak Population" and that natural feed-back processes will cause rather drastic reductions. My WAG is perhaps 500 million to 1.5 billion Human Population in 200 years.

There was something else that accompanied the famous "demographic transition" besides increased wealth. Women won increased rights. It became acceptable to do something besides produce babies.

Now why, exactly, would anyone who was not a madman or an economist think that fewer babies would be produced in places where women are not admired for anything else?

Just a thought for economists and planners: include the majority of the human race in your calculations.

Weisman's on the right track, but to have a [however faint]hope of convincing people all around the world to have way less children, you would first, in my opinion, have to make them all literate, so that they have a hope of understanding what's at stake. Big job. The other choice, of course, is that billions die horrible deaths of starvation and disease, while simultaneously turning all the habitable areas of the Earth's surface into a garbage can.

Population growth is the real elephant (or whale) in the room.
We are already outgrowing our little blue petri dish and there is nowhere else to go.
If humanity doesn't deal with it, then Nature will do it instead with much much greater suffering.

It is a very difficult and divisive subject to discuss. I'm sure we would all like the population to be a lot less than it is, and reduce demand for resources. However, those who control the resources benefit from the increased demand and rise in price, until there is a breakdown in civilisation and wars break out and then others profit from that.

1. Educate everyone to be aware of the situation and for it to influence their family planning. Define sustainability.

2. How about raising the minimum age for having children to say 25+?
People will always have sex - it is what we do and why we are here.
Introduce free contraception.
Define quotas based on surviving antecedents?
Make large families socially discouraged and reduce state benefits?
Impose quotas for consumption with finer granularity at a tangible level, per town or per village or per capita. More people mean less to go round?

Now that we have modified mortality to such a great extent over the last few of generations we must compensate and not continue to behave like viruses, but there is a big difference in behaviour and culture between the developed and developing countries.

In developing countries, having children is often a case of making more than enough to survive to adulthood and help support the parents, and where laws are lax, rape also plays a part.

In developed countries we can expect that our children have a much better chance of survival and so we need less, but some don't see it like that.

3. Improve research on debilitating diseases so that older adults can look after themselves for longer. Increase retirement age. Be good neighbours and reduce selfishness. Reduce stupidly high costs of healthcare. Emigrate to a fairer country. Tax tobacco and alcohol more.
Legalise voluntary euthanasia, horrifying but logical.

"pro-life = pro-extinction" - probably contentious but true!

I don't disagree that rising population is a problem, but taking the I = PAT formulation as given for a moment, there is no reason that population should be any more important than affluence or technology. On the three questions offered:

1- A public discussion to what end? Current national and international arrangements lack the capacity for addressing this issue in most cases. Even if they were given the power to mandate population control there are huge potential problems of representation and equity. There is also a question of whether national and international agreements are robust enough to survive in the face of peak oil.

2- I think this is putting the cart before the horse. It may be better to ask what drives increasing population, and I think there is no one answer to this question. Culture, religion, need for a work force, available nutrition, lack of nutrition, insecurity in old age, etc. all arguably play into the equation differently indifferent settings. This makes any attempt at a large-scale universal solution problematic.

3- Local community systems will develop their own particular institutions for assisting the elderly, in conjunction with whatever larger scale programs survive or develop. In some cases this may even involve having *more* children.

It seems to me to be an easy path to sit in an air-conditioned room (as I am) typing on a computer and argue that people in less developed countries should have fewer children. Although many mechanisms of local community self-sufficiency--local crop varieties, social structures, alternate systems of land tenure, etc.--have been forcibly erased or weakened by our insistence on economic growth and development, perhaps we should be looking at reestablishing global heterogeneity and reducing affluence as first steps.

This is a very good article about what works and what doesn't working in reducing population growth:

http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/demographic_change/populati...

Some interesting tidbits:

About Iran:

"Between 1988 and 1996 the average Iranian family halved in size from 5.2 to 2.6 children after the authorities launched a family planning campaign. The government encouraged women to wait three to four years between pregnancies. Childbearing for women younger than 18 or older than 35 was discouraged.

Religious leaders issued fatwas (edicts) confirming a woman’s right to control her fertility. This paved the way for free contraceptive distribution through a nationwide network of 15,000 'health houses' and the first access to male and female sterilization in the Muslim world."

About Bangladesh:

"From the mid-1970s, Bangladesh adopted a community-based approach, recruiting married, literate village women trained in basic medicine and family planning to go door-to-door dispensing contraceptive pills and condoms and referring women for clinical contraception.

“ 'They acted as a bridge between the modern medical world and the village world,' says Cleland. 'Because they were literate, they were part of the elite, and as villagers, they had credibility among a suspicious and very religious population.'

"The approach was successful. Fertility rates in Bangladesh halved from about six children per women in the early 1970s to three children per women now."

Pregnancy is difficult and dangerous for most women worldwide. When given control over their fertility and some opportunity in life beyond childbearing, most women are glad to limit the number of children they have.

In the United States, at the very least we could limit the dependent tax deduction to just one child. Free contraception and free sterilization for those who wanted them would also be a good idea.

We are limited only by our own ignorance. Why is there virtually no discussion of things like the MYT Engine?? Google it. It has been in development for years, and it is still ongoing, despite the resistance of the behemoth auto companies. This is precisely why we need to let capitalism run its course. Only when these companies are allowed to fail will real 21st century technologies be allowed into the mainstream. By propping up companies like GM, we only prop up a giant weight above our heads. It is patently absurd that a company like Tesla can have a market cap of $2 billion when it is a building a dead end design. We can easily get 60% efficiency out of an internal combustion engine, with power to weight ratios of well over 30:1. Which means we can build full size cars that weigh under 2000 lbs with drivetrains that cost under $5000. But in order to do that, these giant behemoths must fall.

1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion? Movies and TV. That is what the bulk of the populace pay attention to. Any real public discourse is doomed by the libertarians - who think they have the right to do anything, the fundamentalists - who think god wants them to have a bunch of little soldiers for him (or see the Quiverfull movement), and republicans - who depend on keeping those two groups frightened and pissed off to maintain power. A few years of overpopulation disaster/apocalypse movies might get enough people to (poorly) understand the threat enough that it could be discussed at least at the level Global Warming is today (which is to say, pathetically)

2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable? War. People love war. TV loves war. Republicans love war, and quite a few democrats do to. Business loves war. There is absolutely nothing more salable than war, especially if you like false advertising (and we do!)

Having lots of kids is a biological imperative for a lot of people... we haven't had overpopulation pressure much in our evolution. A lot of women want 2 or 3 or 4+ kids, for no other reason than they want them. I think it would take some serious societal reconstruction to get past that.

Huxley was all about Malthus issues; I suggest reading Island some time for an interesting take parenting that could help. In it he had larger family groups that more or less shared children. Something like that could possibly help overcome the need for multiple children many have.

3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue?

We have a lot of people in the world to fill the role of expanding workforces. The problem is not available workers, it is a lack of work. The current situation demonstrates this amply. The reason the ratio of worker to retired has fallen so low is because companies replaced workers with technology; the reason there is any threat to social security is because the money saved from that has flowed upwards in the economic ladder and is not taxed for social security. It is a double whammy. The baby boomers alone are not enough of a population increase to stress the system.

The way to address it is not limit social security taxes by income, and include capital gains (investment income) in the mix.

A lot of jobs could be created by taking care of retirees.

I too have a PhD in geography, with several years of field work in food production in Latin America and western Canada. My PhD is a triple in economics, food production and history.

My agonies on the population issue have come down to something quite simple, in which there is essentially no role for policy.

World population will be cut in half within 40 years. The first phase of the drop will occur when the economic outlook for children is so grim that couples refuse to conceive. We all know people who feel this now.

The second drop will result within one or two decades of the first, and will reflect the deflationary economics caused by the first drop. Two generations of low replacement will "solve" the population explosion. .The economics of this decline will be devastating for such processes as fertilizer production, energy transmission and food storage.

Human groups at that point will be found in clusters around warm-water harbors and in the tropics. High tech as we know it will expire. This is grim; those now under 40 years of age will see it.

1. I doubt it. A discussion requires multiple participants. To be really effective, it would be nice if they had a variety of viewpoints and a willingness to work toward a common goal (or even to agree that there might be a common goal). However, the "public" at large does not want to discuss this topic. Not in the developed world. Not in the developing world. Not on this planet. One can try to bring the subject up, but traction, absent widespread horrific circumstances, is probably a pipe dream.

2. No. The world is too diverse. I doubt there are any solutions or responses that would be acceptable to a critical mass of people in any country on earth. Moreover, all nations (with perhaps a couple of small exceptions) are entirely committed to the concept of a "more is better" growth/consumption existence. They have sold that bill of goods to anywhere from a few to a dozen or more generations of their citizens. Given that, it seems inconceivable that any elected politician anywhere could actually succeed pushing this subject. It seems further inconceivable that any unelected leader would have any incentive to do so (that is, without some formal quid pro quo, and then they might have little incentive to actually adhere to any agreement). Nope. Don't see it. (But, hope I'm wrong).

3. Social Security does not have to be sustainable. I can't think of a single person I know under 30, and precious few under 45, who actually think they will ever see a dime from Social Security. Frankly, given what previous generations (especially the Boomers) have done to future generations, I would be shocked, when these "youngsters" are in charge (as they inevitably will be), if they are willing to spend a penny on anybody a heartbeat older than they are. "You borrowed plenty from us already. It's not our fault you spent it on iPods, Hummers, plasma TVs, Botox, and McMansions in the boonies. Got nothing left for a rainy day? Too bad. Sucks to be you." If you're a Boomer or older, pray that at least one of your kids loves you more than they are pissed at you for screwing over their future... think Grandpa does babysitting (and maybe roto-tilling, and weeding, and some cooking, and home schooling, and whatever the f++k else will keep a roof over his head and food on his plate until his time is up). Or, think 4 generations living in the same house. Call it "localization" or "re-emergent family centric living" if it will make it go down easier. Payback's a bitch. With a long memory and a mean streak.

Brian

Reversible vasectomy technology now!

Also I think the I=PAT equation is not scientifically rational. I'd say affluence should conflate with energy consumption, but "technology" is an energy multiplier for the most part, so more efficient engines are technology, and should be a divisor.

1. I'm not sure it's strictly necessary to "introduce the population issue" into public discussion - that is, the media. The countries of Eastern Europe are all declining, and the West is moving toward decline (Japan is famously in decline, and the only thing propping up the much of Europe is immigration). If this recession turns into a more severe depression, I think we won't have any issue with population growth in the West. Bringing up the topic has the danger of creating the very sad spectacle of rich people calling for poor people to stop having babies. To be honest, if things get bad the problem WILL solve itself, perhaps in a very messy way, but it will be solved.

2. Empowering women and making birth control more widely available are the obvious options. America is the outlier, with a rising population partly due to teenage births. Better sex education is at least part of the solution, but the real problem is a social one. Once again, I do expect that if things get bad enough the problem will fix itself.

3. Extended families can cushion some of the blow, but at some point some people will be left out (due to not having children). Means testing social security and raising the retirement age are the next steps (I expect the age will rise but the means test will not happen until there is no choice, it's much harder to get rid of welfare for the rich).

Those are my thoughts, it's pretty rough but I don't see either the apocalypse or much luck convincing people to do this for abstract reasons.

I for one, did the “right thing” and fathered no children. At 51 and with having a vasectomy in my early 30’s it is rather unlikely this will change.

So why do I feel so bad about this decision. There are so many good reasons not to have children. Logically it was the honorable self-sacrifice thing to do. But, still it feels all wrong.

I was told that sex would be no different and even better since you need not worry about unwanted pregnancy. For me at least, it was never the same, it was less than it was before.

I feel that I am a fairly aware person but I have not a clue how to quiet the voices of sadness inside of me much less someone else. The drive to reproduce would seem to be one of the most deeply seated drives within us.

I wonder if much of what I feel is at the subconscious level out of the control of the conscious mind. That would imply that I am not totally in control of who I am. I assume that I am not unique and thus everyone is influenced by thought processes that occur outside of their conscious mind.

This further points to the challenge of convincing the masses about the disaster of population overshoot and the critical need to address this. It means to get the message across we must communicate down to the subconscious levels of the mind.

No wonder this has been and is the most treacherous of problems.

I find it surprising that in a discussion of population on, of all places, The Oil Drum, there is so little talk about the role of oil in population growth. The human population was fairly stable at less than one billion right up to the time we found petroleum. If you look at the graph of world population, it was pretty much a flat line until that time, and then took almost a right angle turn upwards.

All the factors that allowed this sudden growth were fueled almost entirely by petroleum: Food production, including mechanical cultivation, fertilization, and harvest, and food distribution, trucking, shipping, air, rail, all are made possible only by petroleum. In the older inhabited parts of the world, every city that predates the petroleum era has a small central core, which remained of similar size over the centuries. That core is surrounded and dwarfed by a cancerous growth of larger buildings and infrastructure, the construction of which was likewise made possible only by petroleum. The production and distribution of the vast majority of all manufactured goods that keep our population going are, likewise, made possible only by petroleum.

It would seem to follow, then, that petroleum is the culprit. If you have a number of, say, rabbits in a big pen, they can only increase their numbers in proportion to the growth of the grass on which they feed. But if you find a truckload of rabbit food and start dumping it gradually into the pen, then their numbers will inevitably increase just as dramatically as ours have.

Petroleum is, unless you believe the abiogenic theories, the stored surplus of photosynthetic energy from hundreds of millions of years of life on earth. A few generations ago, we found it and have been mining it. I would be preaching to the choir on this forum if I were to point out how long this is likely to be able to go on.

But is it true that petroleum is, in fact, the cause of population growth? I had a discussion with an oil industry exec who believed and argued credibly that the human population began its logarithmic growth phase some decades before the oil era began, and was destined to grow even if oil didn't exist. This doesn't seem likely to me. But I think the topic is the one which should be discussed and debated above all others in this thread.

Interesting Java based population calculator
http://www.di2.nu/pop_calc.html

Replacement rate(2.1 children per woman)keep population stable.
One child families reduce the population quickly all things being equal; population would be cut in half in 8 decades for OECD type populations.
Population control by increasing death rates, intentionally killing actual rather than potential people,seems less ethical IMO.

We must move away from our child-centered culture.

Nice to hear from Gary Peters, and it's very appropriate to have his work here on TOD. For those who may not be familiar, if he sounds like he wrote the book on the subject, he did. His Population Geography, with Robert Larkin, is now in its 8th edition I think.

"Peering into the Dawn of an Urban Millennium"

In 2008, the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: For the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people, will be living in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to swell to almost 5 billion. Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Their future, the future of cities in developing countries, the future of humanity itself, all depend very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth.

However, a disproportionate amount of growth of uban areas occurs because of the higher fertility rates in the rural areas. In the rural areas, children are often wanted in order to help with agricultural or handicraft work. In the city, there is little economic incentive to have additional children.

Note that the growth of cities in developing countries will be minimal. Most of the projected increase from 3.3 to 5 billion is in developing countries, mainly Asia and Africa.

Technology can play a role. Somewhat over 1 billion cell phones are being manufactured annually. Within a few years these will be the equivalent of smartphones with the ability to provide information, including information about fertility and family planning, to every woman on earth.

However, as noted by other commenters, a vital step in reducing fertility will be to raise the education and status of women. This may also be somewhat easier to do in an urban setting.

While no one paid attention, world food production curve traced out an S curve, meaning we are against some natural limits, like genetic improvements, sunlight and chemical resistant pests and weeds. The Green Revolution yield increase was a constant rate (kg/hectare) while population was exponential. It will only take a few more years to for population to overcome the food supply. That is why world food stocks have trended lower and are near record lows. Low inventories were not due to planning.

War is the ultimate and eventually unavoidable solution.

When the population was around 1 billion humans on the planet nearly everyone lived in poverty (see Sachs, "The End of Poverty").

As population reached 5 billion, people who lived under capitalist democracy rule lived affluent lives (even the "poor" having longer life spans).

As population has reached nearly 7 billion the pace of development has increased with even more people living longer, more comfortable, lives.

And as development spreads, birth rates decline. They are below replacement level in most of Europe and the US (with population growth coming only due to immigration).

As the US swims in a glut of capacity in houses, manufacturing, and food (look at the price for dairy and grain products, near historical lows) consider this- with humans, you can build enough solar to support 10 billion people (DLR). Without humans, you just have piles of sand and trace materials and sun. There is no reason we shouldn't be pushing development to the rest of the world so they can live as well as we do, other than political gamesmanship to build constituencies and control.

One last fact- more than 99% of earth species that have gone extinct did so before man came on the scene. As if you couldn't figure it out based in volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, viruses, freezes, floods, heat waves, droughts, and earthquakes- Mother Nature is not our friend.

If we truly believe what Gary is saying (and I know I do) then we should actively get involved then in trying to fight it rather than just sit here on our computers doing internet style 'woe is the planet' diatribes. And one way is really very simple, with our money that otherwise would go to mindless consumer products here are a few ideas:
1) We should really consider funding (like seed money for) male birth control not like the old pill form for women, but something like this. It really could be revolutionary considering children are, sadly, in too many cases a byproduct of a guy who just want to 'get a piece' or a woman who just wanted a baby so badly that she just 'forgot' to take her pill.

2) If we seek to really do some good we all should consider donating to organizations that work on issues that will affect this. A few are the Grammeen Bank that helps to empower women in the third world or another organization closer to home, Planned Parenthood really a few buck here and there would go a long way and I'm sure both of these organizations are hurting right now (and I believe Planned Parenthood has been fighting the knuckle dragging policy of 'lets just not tell kids about how to prevent pregnancy while having sex because they will all do the right thing and just not have sex' that has been funded with our tax dollars for the last decade).

1. Are we even having the discussion, though? Or the right discussion? Take China, or Iran, for example.

Why do a couple need to have even one child?

Just as we need to change how we view death, we also need to rethink reproduction. As a species, we still assign quasi-mystical qualities to both that are ultimately a byproduct of emotional response to social conditioning. I'd propose that the subject is far more taboo than we're comfortable admitting.

Reproduction = consumption.

Is there a biological imperative to reproduce? Does it supersede the biological imperative to survive?

We've partly discussed how the human species differs from other animals in terms of it's relationship to nature; Bambi doesn't need to have a living will, just to avoid being dinner. But the notion of "thinning the herd" is actually just another way to avoid the subject. Ethically, one can only determine the outcome of one's own behavior. From a practical standpoint, the idea of reducing the population by force (i.e. war) overlooks the tendency of those being "thinned" to fight back.

Population is fundamentally a resource/sustainability issue. Those arguing the necessity of reproducing to replace the segment of the population dodge the issue because overpopulation continues to be an issue even where birth rates have dropped off drastically. It is not an issue that one may simply "opt out" of.

I'm very much in favor of:

Making family planning available as broadly as possible.
Making it as simple to adopt as can be managed (and putting to rest any prohibition on gay couples adopting).
Making euthanasia safe and legal.
Promoting gender equality and providing educational and economic opportunity for women.

None of which, individually or collectively, are sufficient to address the problem and doubtless will be expensive.

2. I don't think it can fairly be claimed that we've really addressed the subject except in the case of a small minority to begin with, just as we haven't really begun to address the issue of resource depletion or climate change. After a sense, it's a bit like developing the ability to be comfortable with being wrong, or being able to accept criticism without internalizing it. It seems counter-intuitive and takes us out of our comfort zone.

But the ability to embrace and incorporate this kind of thinking is also as much a part of our nature as the ability to reshape our environment to adapt to our needs.

3. I've always thought of this as an argument in favor of immigration reform. There are limits to what's sustainable within our own geography as well, but in terms of merely accommodating a declining birth rate? Its not that big a deal or undoable by any stretch -- more over, the evidence is that this will occur whether we approve of it or not.

The future is beige, and likely more austere than we might have expected, but even accepting this, also promises to be more difficult than we've come to expect. It wasn't that long ago that using a diesel generator to create electricity and using wood for heat and cooking was considered environmentally friendly.

Imagine what it's going to look like after the population jumps from 7 to 9 billion before leveling off. I don't think it necessarily has to be a species ending event, but it does have that potential, and to address it, we need to embrace decreased consumption as fundamentally embodying our best interests.

For the record, if anyone is wondering, I'm male, 42, heterosexual, have no children and an average sex life, and yes, thus far this is by choice. The only times when I've ever acknowledged where this might change is in recognizing that, being half a couple, it isn't exclusively my choice. ;)

Both population and consumption are parts of the problem--neither can be ignored and both are exacerbating the human impact on Earth.

Thanks for putting this sentence in there. It's something that needs to be repeated like a mantra. My only advice is that you could have put it further up in the article so that no one has to read down too far before they get to it. ;-)

'Population Growth Must Stop'

You're asking the most arrogant, aggressive, demanding, voracious specie ever to have evolved on this planet to ease back on population growth? But everything in excess is what humankind loves about pillaging its resources, and the idea of easing back on something, anything, is anathema to that experience, even if it allowed said specie to continue to pillage a little while longer.

There is no planning or idea of an overall plan to the degree of expansiveness that occurs. The slogan for humankind was aptly defined in a James Bond Movie:

The Earth is Not Enough! Yelled out the windows of a Hummer going full speed with gurgling after market mufflers while holding a 2500 calorie mega burger with bacon, fries and a milkshake, towing a 60 foot cabin cruiser for the fishing of whatever hits the hooks later that day. It's a day to guzzle fuel, to pound down hard earned calories, and procreate as many as possible until the Sun goes down.

Where P = principal and I = interest:
(P+I)^n/P(n-1)

When Hitler penned Mein Kampf, he wrote that American eugenicists were his inspiration...which led directly and unequivocally to the Holocaust we all know and hate. I'm personally all for INCENTIVE-BASED EUGENICS, unlike that which was forced upon Americans in the 20's and 30's, giving us places like "Fitter Families For Georgia", which sterilized women who produced mentally retarded children. We have better science now, but have the motives changed? What motives? Who's motives? Please keep these question in mind as you read.

Get rid of us "useless eaters", like my family and BILLIONS like us, since our Earth-killing (TAXABLE -- Global Carbon Tax) CO2 is slaughtering the trees and environment. Kill us all. And if that's not enough, get rid of those who Stalin called the "bourgeois" class (meaning: "materialistic in outlook").

The Ruling Class has advocated this for a long time:

"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history." -- David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973 [Mao, who slaughtered about 70 MILLION Chinese.]

"Diet, injections and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible." -- Bertrand Russell, "The Impact of Science On Society"

"Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton." -- Bertrand Russell (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize)

"We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent." -- James Warburg, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Feb. 17, 1950

"A total world population of 250 to 300 million people, a 95 percent decline from current levels, would be ideal." -- Ted Turner, interview, Audubon Magazine 1996

I almost wish I believed in the Christians' version of "God". It would be easy to condemn to Hell those who believe in such narrow-minded and short-sighted _horseshit_. Humanity needs to get its shit together, by way of implementing monumental changes concerning money, space flight, etc. Else, this depopulation stuff?
It will happen to most of you reading this website. Bank on it. 'Cause that's who will profit -- the mega-banks, the financeers of governments the world over. Have you not noticed it's the SAME COMPANIES bankrupting every country with the exact same derivative scheme? Portugal, Iceland (they're fighting back!), Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy... How many times must the same scenario happen before you see this blatant pattern?
Jesus Christ, people. It's in your face, every single day.

"Yeah! Too many people! It's OUR fault! It's certainly not the fault of fractional reserve banking, wherein there's always more bonds than dollars. The money-printers mean us no harm, and WE THE PEOPLE screwed it all up by having too many kids!" etc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37RhdFGVsM&feature=related

Please, watch the videos. I know at least some of you will watch, and give intelligent rebuttals. There are great minds here. And if I'm seeing connections where there are none, I'm sure you will do your own research and prove conclusively that I'm bat-sh!t insane. Else...you'll learn what I've come to embrace as fact, and you'll be upset that we let it get this far. History repeats itself.
Like Dr. Martin Luther King said, "One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake... Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Although it’s easy to finger an abundance of cheap energy ...primarily oil ... and the myriad of technological advances … particularly those that have affected health care and food production, storage and distribution …that have accompanied our million year tenure on this planet, as the main contributors of exponential human population growth, the truth is there are only two factors that have put us in the situation we’re in: pain and pleasure.

Both are universal, and our judgments of both determine how we respond to the evolutionary forces that act to limit our distribution and abundance. They are also the reasons why we will never rationalize or technologize our way out of the over-population dilemma.

Although getting the over-population issue into the realm of pedestrian discussion would be nice, changing cultural ideology is an extremely long process. There likely isn’t enough time left and cognitive dissonance will throw up all kinds of road blocks.

Given that all humans “use” pain and pleasure as the main factors in decision making, arriving at a “salable” approach to thinking about limits would require full understanding of how individuals determine/judge what is and what isn’t painful or pleasurable.

Unfortunately, no one wants to believe that understanding why we think the way we do will help humanity. Indeed, most institutions … religious, economic and political … work tirelessly against that ever happening.

Google Earth view of essentially any part of the United States is sufficient to see that we have depleted our natural resources and ecosystem's capacity to absorb the entropy of our population beyond repair.

I am positive that this will not be responded to well, but the fact is that population is not exactly exploding among Caucasian North Americans and Europeans.

So, basically all of the Anglo/Franco/Germanic populations are just slightly short of replacing the generations ahead of them.

I, for one, would absolutely never accept a governmental intrusion to limit procreation. I find it mind boggling that some would.

The United States is completely enamored with growing its population - forever. Enter "stagnant population growth" and you'll see plenty of article about local US communities in despair that their population growth is zero or "only" 1%. Enter "vibrant population growth" and you'll see plenty of articles from local communities describing in a state of breathless excitement how their growth is 2% or 3%.

Other articles proudly describe how the US population is still growing while the rest of the developed world, and much of the developing world too maybe, is tending towards "stagnation". This growth will be a source of youth and vigor in the decades to come for the US while the rest of the world declines into old age and decreptitude. Or so it is claimed. Well we'll see how excited America is when its population hits 2 billion people.

A rationing program in OECD nations will cut overconsumption. It will have an adverse effect on the economie but not as badly as leaving it down to price or taxing and the demand destruction they cause. Rationing would include the positive externality of improving many peoples health at the same time.

Once people in western nations understand the seriousness of the situation then a move can be made to tackle population. These things must be taken on in the right order otherwise people will just dismiss it as scare mongering.

Who would believe there was a population problem if the local supermarket shelves were still stacked with food?

profound analysis summary by Al Bartlett:
human growth influencing factors and options
watch minute 4:45 to minute 7:20 in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BMEImNf9M8

That post was really bad. A few vital insights:

1. As the population growth rate is slowing, it is NOT exponential, but clearly sub-exponential. Actually, it is not even linear, but SUB-LINEAR as the growth rate has slowed from 88 million per year to 77 million per year since 1990!
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopchggraph.php

2. Woman fertility has been crashing all over the world and most are now below replacement rate. Africa remains in high fertility territory but they have begun their crash too.

3. The 72 billion is nonsense. Energy-wise, the average world consumption is about 2 kW/capita, while industrialized countries in Europe and Asia are doing ~5 kW. Only North America gluttons at 10+ kW. So 9 billion * 5 / 2 = 22.5 billion. BUT ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_consumption_versus_GDP.png

4. Energy efficiency (gdp/energy) is improving by about 2% per year, which is more than the population growth rate. So there is room for economic growth AND population growth within the current world energy consumption.

5. Nuclear power gives us limitless almost carbon free energy. While it is not immediately portable, it can easily replace most of the fossil energy production today.

6. No, we shouldn't wait for fertility to drop in high fertility nations. We should speed it by helping them put good governance in place so that their economic growth picks up.

7. Uneducated bashing of economy and economists isn't helpful. Economists do useful science and have useful policy recommendations.

8. Economic growth isn't so much about physical growth, as it is about doing stuff smarter. Thus economic growth isn't tied to any physical limits, other than in a very, very distant theoretical future where all R&D has been done and there is nothing left to discover or invent or improve.

9. I=PAT is stupid. Affluence and tech makes us more able and more prone to make less environmental impact.

10. The first world lifestyle is lived by many more than a billion people. A billion is the amount of people who live in first world countries, but lots and lots of people in the rest of the world have a comparable life style. The middle classes of India and China and Indonesia are enormous.

11. Global limits of child-bearing to one isn't politically possible, ever. Just forget about it. Or think about the catastrophic demographics which would ensue - nobody would be able to afford retirement with the upside-down population pyramid. Go with the flow - the problem is solving itself anyway.

1)
Yes, talk about it. Drag it into the limelight. No one really likes large families anyway. Once people start talking about it, you may have difficulty stopping the chatter. Get famous people to say they can't justify having more than one or two kids. Or pointing out how great adoption is. They do seem to like adopting.

2)
Encourage homosexuality.

Only allow child benefits on the first child.

The problem is not 1 or 2 children, it is 3 or more. A campaign of showing the benefits for one child families. More money, time, attention for the child etc...Stigmatise large families.

Legalise abortion properly or remove other impediments and stigma. Free condoms.

Make adoption more appealing.

PROPER sex education for young children. Make sure the girls know what they are in for. Education is key in these things. I'm betting most children brought into this world are "happy accidents".

Tighter immigration controls.

3) Adopt a grandma campaign. Private/charity over 60's clubs and services.

Yes, it's late. But very nicely written article--clear, concise--and devastating.

I learned long ago to detach myself from this issue: No kids here, but so what? The future is not mine to control or to alter.

On die-off, or properly die-back: It is happening and has been happening since the dawn of life. There has always been death, disease, depredation, etc. The four horseman reproduced themselves along with the first replicators in the primeval seas. It's just that the birth rate now exceeds the death rate, so we don't notice the die-back occurring 24/7.

It's all simply about a change in rates. Perhaps we won't even notice when the death rate begins to overtake the birth rate. There is no "die-back" proper waiting in the wings to take over. It's just that the numbers streaming in the IN door will taper off--or perhaps not--while the numbers streaming out the OUT door will increase.

Of course it will happen. "Zero population growth is gonna happen."

It might not even happen in your own hometown, or country, or even continent. Life will even look rosy outside your window.

Here in the Temperate Zone, I never notice the decrease in daylight hours until sometime in late July. It's happening right this moment, though.

I believe the historically proven human-controlled way to stop population growth is war. Consumption and growth were the solutions after the last one to prevent us from new ones.

My answers to discussion questions:

1. Are there things we can do to get the population issue more into public discussion?

Sorry to answer a question with another question, but I'm old enough to have gone through the whole Ehrlich silliness, and so, upon seeing its reincarnation, have to ask: why return it to public discussion at all? We've had the population increase dramatically since his day, but so has global prosperity, etc. Paul Ehrlich was mistaken, and that is that.

2. Are there other approaches to limiting population that might be more salable?

I am not interested in selling this propaganda. It's not just silly, as the "population bomb" thing is; it has the potential to be harmful to us all. The movie "Medicine Man" was quite enjoyable, but while watching it, for the first time, the question came to me: so what if we somehow save a region that contains a source of a new drug or some other great boon to humanity, if we have acted to prevent the existence of perhaps the only human being who can tell us how to use it? Why do we promote such things as "save the rain forest" but not "save the people -- all of them, past, present and future?" The two are inextricably linked and we cannot separate them except with great cost to ourselves.

That, right there, is the chief argument against "limiting population." Everything else is eugenics.

3. If Social Security is not sustainable, having fewer children will increase the likelihood that older adults will have no way of taking care of themselves. How does one deal with this issue?

Follow G. K. Chesterton's advice: let all the children be born and then let us kill the ones we don't like. Or if that's too harsh to consider (and it most certainly is - he, and I, are being swiftian here), then drop Social Security out of the question, since it isn't a factor in places like Europe and Japan, which are facing exactly this problem, and consider the possibility that having more children will increase our opportunities to build wealth, create/develop new forms of energy and new ways to use the ones we have, etc.

This post is an excellent example of the "people are the problem" mind thought. I happen to believe that people are also the solution.

Many thanks to my friend, Professor Emeritus Gary Peters and to Gail Tverberg, Jason Bradford and Rembrandt for this discussion. At least to me, any discussion of human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth focuses attention on the proverbial "mother" of all human-driven global challenges in our time. No expert I know is more capable than Gary Peters at making the case for carefully examining the heretofore ignored research by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D. and David Pimentel, Ph.D. on this vital matter of concern.

Special thanks are due Fred Magyar for distinguished service to the cause of fostering intellectual honesty and moral courage in the discussion of human population dynamics and human overpopulation.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://www.panearth.org/
http://www.countercurrents.org/salmony030510.htm

1. Television shows could use it as a contraversial theme to get people arguing.

2. Governments could pay people to be sterilized, the biggest amount for having no children and tapering off after every child. Governments could have a sliding scale of permanent tax incentives for the wealthy who decide to be sterilized.

I think this should be totally voluntary.

3. Adopt a greatgrandparent! Or two or three! Government pay people to care for the frail elderly. Also give them aids in their homes so they can look after themselves longer. Maybe a few could get together with a younger person to rent a group house? Internet connection permanently open to give them security.

Also another related comment.

Could there be a major effort at replanting the world, or is it too late to fix it. If the world was covered in the correct vegetation wouldn't that repair the climate and so increase the carrying capacity of the Earth? I do believe we should stabilise the population, but the world needs to be fixed as well as part of the solution, I think.

Perspective on world population:

San Bernardino Co., CA = 20,062 square miles = 559,296,460,800 square feet = 0.035% of dry land on the planet

World population = 6,802,000,000 = 82.23 square feet per person in that county

So, every person on the planet could fit into that county spaced 10.23 feet apart; not that anyone would want to, but when looking at how that one county compares to a map of the globe, well like I say: perspective.

(Edit for context) We are more toxic to the planet than petroleum, DDT, PCB's, and Plutonium combined; oh wait, we are all those things combined and more!

They should have a child tax. The first one is tax free, the 2nd one is $150,000. the 3rd is 500,000. the 4th 1,500,000. the 5th and any after that are $10,000,000. each.

And there are no payment plans. Either you have the money within 90 days or both parents are sterilized. Make it a UN mandated tax worldwide. Wage war against any country failing to collect the tax and conduct sterilizations.

TOD can use some population control themselves.

As for number three, what makes people think adding more warm bodies to the equation will help make Social Security sustainable? In the US, people are more productive per capita because of the capital employed. For instance someone in the US who digs trenches using a back-hoe is far more productive than someone in a third world country who digs ditches using a hand shovel. Give that person a back hoe and they will be equally productive as the US person, however, bring them to the US without a back hoe, and production is not substantially increased. It's that GDP out of which the means for Social Security comes.

Great Spirit, I am unworthy;
My species has disgraced itself.
Of all the species that live, or have ever lived,
Mine is the lowliest.
Lower than the flowers who fill the air with sweet pollen,
Lower than the trees who encircle the Earth with their roots,
Lower than the insects, rulers of Earth
Since the beginning of time,
Lower than the darting fish,
Lower than the soaring birds,
Lower than the four-legged creatures,
Who are the beating heart of the living Earth.

Great Spirit, my shame is as deep as the ocean,
And my sadness is unbearable.
I pray for enlightenment,
But fear that my prayer is too late.
Great Spirit, if this be so, then I pray for extinction.
Let my species become extinct, and vanish from the Earth.
Let my loins be barren,
Let my seed not sprout,
Let the race of men fall like leaves.
Let my fields grow wild,
Let my fences crumble,
Let my cities turn to dust, and become forests.
Let the grass drink my blood;
Let my body be food for worms.
Great Spirit, let me die, that the Earth may live.

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/weedplan.html
http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/humcan.html

At least one top scientist (aside from Dr. Ehrlich and the others who have specialized in explaining the dangers of over-population) is willing to speak frankly about excessive human breeding and the coming crisis. See what Dr. Frank Fenner, who was instrumental in the effort against smallpox, has to say:

http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html

Seeing that a very large chunk of this comments thread has (understandably) devolved from the global issues down to the local one of vasectomies and social security payout checks, let me add here that in the new educational model we are developing, a key prediction is that human population will probably peak circa 2080 at 14 billion, plus or minus 10%, not the 9 billion being passed around in demographic and UN circles like a tray of snacks at a college faculty cocktail party. As a commenter above more or less rightly estimates, the per capita energy demand of all these heat-stressed humans will be perhaps double or triple that of today’s 7 billion. Their electricity will be coming primarily from coal, of course, plus natural gas or methane from new sources, since we won’t agree to build enough nuclear generating capacity by then, and all the “alternative” sources will probably still be essentially in varying degrees of startup mode. The result is that the poor atmosphere is in for a really nasty further increase in CO2 levels, well within the lifetime of most of your grandchildren. But the problem these descendents of yours have won’t be mainly heat stress: they’ll likely be living cheek-by-jowl in air conditioned rabbit warrens, and not just the scenic ones in sunny Santa Barbara. The problem will be finding water to drink, since they will have long before drained the North Ameican water table.

The ideas suggested in many comments here that necessarily rely on rational collective political consensus are not going to happen. If one wants to envision the political barriers to population control, one need only multiply the present corporate-funded campaign of climate change denial by, oh, an order of magnitude, roughly. Better make that two orders of magnitude, since organized religions will join with the corporate chorus of growth, growth, growth, for free, using their own beleivers’ money..

Instead, with each new threat to our continued existance, the entrenched political machines and their corporate masters will become more dominant, not less so. Our own fear and inertia and personal consumption level will all argue for leaving the problems to these powerful folks who control the resources, the troops, and, above all, the energy. Rational birth restriction policies will simply be kept off the tables that count, that is, the tables where the votes and the profits are counted.

The doomers are thus more right than they can imagine, but are way off in terms of both the societal collapse window, which will come later rather than sooner, and, in my less-than-humble judgment, the specifics of the crisis scenario.

I am haunted by the tidal wave of humanity overspreading the surface of the Earth, a wave that appears to be growing much too rapidly before my eyes and threatening to precipitate the extirpation of global biodiversity; the irreversible degradation of the environment; the dissipation of always limited and sometimes rare natural resources; and the endangerment of the very future of children everywhere.

we need policies and incentives to stop growth now.

As a wise socialist, how do you feel about mass genocide and eugenics? Both have been performed before in the United States. WWSAPPD? (What would Stalin and Pol Pot do?)

resource limits and environmental degradation are becoming more apparent every day.

Are they? Food and oil are getting cheaper when measured in gold. The ozone hole problem is improving.

Resource scarcities, especially oil, are likely to limit future economic growth

Correct, all economic goods are scarce. Economics exists because of scarcity.

It's amazing what freely acting people can accomplish through peaceful cooperation under the division of labor - without being ordered by a socialist central planning committee what to consume, what to produce, and what kinds of sex to have.

I Wonder What Galileo Is Doing Tonight……

I find it irresistible not to at least take a moment to wonder aloud about what Galileo is doing tonight. My hope would be that the great man is resting in peace and that his head is not spinning in his grave. How, now, can Galileo possibly find peace when so many top-rank scientists, rather than follow the splendid example of Professor Emeritus Gary Peters, choose not to speak out loudly and clearly regarding whatsoever they believe to be a root cause of the distinctly human-driven predicament that presents itself to humanity in our time?

Where are the many voices in the scientific community with appropriate expertise such as Gary Peters possesses who are willing to acknowledge and critique the heretofore ignored scientific evidence of human population dynamics and the human overpopulation of Earth that has been peer-reviewed and published by Russell Hopfenberg, Ph.D. and David Pimentel, Ph.D.?

Perhaps there is something in the great works of Dr. Gary Peters that will give Galileo a moment of peace.

What would the world we inhabit be like today if scientists like Galileo had adopted a code of silence and determined to remain electively mute by willfully refusing to speak of the best available scientific evidence?

"This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people."

Maybe we should be celebrating peak oil (and debt, soil and other resources). It is clear that poor people will continue having too many babies. It is also clear richer people will not stop competing for resources. No leadership process exists to regulate this, and everybody would just fight over their assigned limits anyway.

Peak oil will make everything more expensive, eventually out of the reach of poorer people. The sad fact is humans will not control themselves until there is not enough food. Essentially this is no different than the natural limits on every other organism. I say, peak oil cannot come fast enough.