When will we be able to talk about over population?

We started "talking" about over-population with the publication of "An Essay on the Principle of Population," written by Thomas Malthus in 1798. Unfortunately, Malthus was writing on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, which changed the western world in ways that were unimaginable, even to the wise men who were organizing the United States at that time.

Because of advances, like moving produce by train and the invention of refrigeration, the public discussion about the growth of population diminished. When the next "red flag" was raised by Paul Ehrlich in his book, "The Population Bomb" in the 1960's, a phenomenon called the "Green Revolution" was just starting. Both Malthus and Ehrlich feared that we would not be able to produce enough food, but the Industrial Revolution and the Green Revolution proved them wrong, at least for their time.

But, as early as the 1950's, Rachel Carson ("The Silent Spring") warned about how the use of pesticides and biocides would affect soil. Then, by the 1980's, Sandra Postel ("Pillars of Sand") warned about the world's lack of potable water. During the past thirty years, scientists around the world have been worried about both phenomena.

The idea that everyone can "fit" into the state of Texas is ridiculous. All you need to do is to look at existing conditions in places like Mumbai (formerly Bombay) or the slums of almost any Central American country to see what conditons would be like.

Today, scientists are worried most about the availability of potable water. They are also concerned about the tremendous increase in soil erosion. These problems are compounded by the increase in tornadoes, hurricanes, and other weather events that used to happen only periodically. Many parts of our seas and oceans have been "over-fished." Inland seas -- in particular, see the Aral Sea -- are drying up. Desertification (the process of formerly arable land turning into useless desert) is increasing worldwide, even in the southwest United States. New methods of producing food, like hydroponic farming, are still too expensive for general use.

When Malthus wrote his thesis, world population was less than 1 billion. When Ehrlich's book was published, world population was 3 billion. Today, it stands at 7.2 billion. The big question is: How many more people can the resources of the world support? And, we need to remember that most of the world which lived on subsistence farming (particularly Africa and Southeast Asia) are beginning to industrialize. This will increase the urban population which will become even more reliant on fewer farmers and already scarce water-delivery systems.

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This is a pressing issue which needs a lot of attention but unfortunately as a human race we are far more worried about control of fellow humans and our virtual world we built over several generations. Quite frankly "humans are a parasite to this world" and is only interested in extracting every ounce of resources available with no thought for other living organisms and not even of their own kind. We are too busy fighting each other for power and control over resources to the point that we do not care if we get a pie out of it but the other fellow should not be in control at any cost :)

So in short this topic is well overdue and should be actively discussed but as always until a catastrophic event it’s not a topic of interest for most of the human kind. The world has survived several million years with various species and will eventually find a way to flush out the excesses. We need to learn to co-exist with nature or be prepared for an eventual end of the human domination.

I always thought this question required more attention. I'm sure it will progressively heat up once we've exhausted our resources and extreme measure have to be taken.

The Malthus population bomb theory addressed the issue many years ago, indicating that over population was unavoidable and simple mathematics can determine when the tipping point will come.

You should check out the movie "Soilent Green"

Overpopulation is a code word for "I wanna kill something!" In actual fact, the entire world population could live in the state of Texas with the same population density as New York City.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-...

Over population is also related to overcrowding.the day we start talking about over population is the day we start talking about birth control.inrease in birth rate leads to over population and to overcrowding which in turn causes a lot of social diasaster in a society.