Overpopulation: unending growth on our finite planet is impossible.

Some truths about overpopulation - for all sides

2026-06-22T10:27:23+00:00

Overpopulation is not about space. In theory if we build a mega city on 600x600 Kilometers, and use the same population density like Macau or Monaco, all people on the Planet could live there. Overpopulation is about the impact on the environment like water/fuel/resource consumption and CO2 production, pollution etc.
It is undeniable that this consumption and pollution is too high. If everyone lived like the average citizen of Qatar, we would need 9 Earths. Even if everyone lived like the people of Moldavia, the poorest country in Europe, we would still need 1.2 Earths. Mathematically this proves that our current level of population is too high.
You can have more people with a reduced living standard, or less people with a higher living standard. You cannot have more people and a better living standard without more damage.
Overpopulation is also NOT about better resource distribution. This would elevate some problems but not most. Assume that each Billionaire consumes the same resources like 1000 American Middle Class Persons. Eliminating 3500 Billionaires is thus equal to 3.5 Million Americans. Its something but not enough to have any large effect.
Overpopulation is a global problem but at the same time a regional one. Countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan are running out of Water because their population increased 4-5x in the last 50 years.
Immigration into First World countries is making the problem worse. The Western World has below replacement level birth rates. Immigration artificially increases this population and leads to more resource consumption and CO2 production. Because every immigrant coming there consumes more resources, even if they get less kids than at home.
Green hopium/technology/going vegan is not a silver bullet. Wind+Solar produce just around 25% of the worlds energy despite 4 decades of investment. There are already 22 000 desalination plants supplying 300 Million people with water every day. Even if we tripple this number to 900 Million, thats just 10% of world population in 2035. Also these cost lots of energy. Mining the lithium for electric batteries/solar panels is also extremely devastating to the environment.
We can feed ourselves only because we got lucky through the Green Revolution and because we just abused fossil fuels and artificial fertilizer. But with Climate change and water shortages, we have probably reached peak farmland/yields.
World population is expected to increase from 8.3 Billion in 2026 to 10.3 Billion in 2056. If we can barely supply 8.3 Billion people, with all possible tricks and a perfectly running system, how are we going to supply 10 Billion+.
Why should we want this? Why are 8.3 Billion not enough? Even if our population would be reduced by one Billion. We would still be at 7 Billion people. So the level in 2011. The world worked just fine then. Its just Capitalist propaganda. The Capitalists want more consumers and more workers so that they can keep wages low and rent/house prices high.
People like Malthus and Ehrlich were prophets that were ridiculed, but they were right. They were just off by 3/4 of a century or so. Once artificial fertilizers become scarce and all the ground water is used up, carrying capacity of this planet will revert back to its natural perhaps 4 Billion.

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What are some links that you like to share in discussions relevant to overpopulation?

2026-04-29T20:28:16+00:00

Let's share some of the links that we find useful when we're discussing overpopulation and related topics. I'm interested in anything that you've found yourself returning to.

Maybe you have some bookmarks that you use often, maybe something obscure that rarely comes up but you know how to talk about it when it does.

Please drop as many as you'd like here!

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Dropping birth rates and technology

2026-07-24T18:22:43+00:00

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Korea Births to Top 300,000 in 2026, First in Eight Years

2026-07-24T21:47:51+00:00

Ps. I hope you understand that the post title and the article title are different because there are some parts of the article that differ slightly from reality.

And

https://www.reddit.com/r/overpopulation/comments/1rhjtp8/according\_to\_this\_post\_i\_wrote\_south\_koreas\_low/

In fact, considering these factors, it is highly likely that South Korea's actual TFR is overwhelmingly higher than the official figure.

Of course, it is already the highest level in the East Asia-Thailand region according to the official figures, and it is the only region where the number of births has surged for several consecutive years; yet, it is ridiculous that there are still many people who believe South Korea has an extremely low birth rate.

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Humans calling animals 'overpopulated' while there are 8 billion of us consuming the planet is peak hypocrisy.

2026-07-24T05:59:34+00:00

Once upon a time, there was a creature that was remarkably skilled at telling stories.

They painted sharks as monsters of the deep, then hunted them into the silent depths.

They labeled elephants a threat, then rode them as if they owned the world. And when their own kind looked different, they locked them in cages and called it a 'show.'

Now, as nature stumbles and serpents crawl from the thickets, they point their fingers once more: 'Look, they are overpopulated!'

Amusing, isn’t it? On this shrinking earth, eight billion souls seem to have forgotten who the true dominant force is.

Ah, but pay no mind. This is merely a fable from a storyteller who enjoys observing. Just read between the lines.

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Declining Population Could Mean a Better Economy | Engoo Daily News

2026-07-23T18:31:27+00:00

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"We need more kids for the economy" is an economically illiterate take. Here’s why

2026-07-23T16:52:08+00:00

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Global population growth peaked six decades ago

2026-07-23T19:23:59+00:00

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If they can’t afford, why do they have so many kids?

2026-07-23T08:55:06+00:00

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This alarmist, deliberately manipulative language should make any reasonable, well-informed person angry.

2026-07-23T02:27:15+00:00

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There is no such thing as a "labor shortage!"

2026-07-21T03:55:11+00:00

There is a surpass of lazy, bitchy politicians and CEOs who thinks that they too privileged to do real work. Sorry for the low effort post, but I hope it has a big or decent effect. (That's just how I do things, minimum effort for the best outcome)

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If they can’t afford, why do they have so many kids?

2026-07-20T11:23:18+00:00

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Isaac Asimov - The Decade of Decision (June 2nd, 1979, Manchete)

2026-07-19T16:13:34+00:00

We are now in the 1980s—the decade of decision.

Every decade is a decade of decision in one way or another, but this one is different because it involves the whole world and because it involves the life and death of civilization.

It was possible in past periods of history for a particular civilization to decline while others remained flourishing. When western Europe was in the "Dark Age" between A.D. 500 and 1000, southeastern Europe, northern Africa, and southern Asia were doing very well.

And it was possible for the civilization that did decline to recover and move even higher than before, as western Europe began to do after A.D. 1000.

This may not be possible now. Thanks to the steady advance of science and technology, the world has become so small that it is now a single economic unit with the welfare of each advanced portion of it dependent on all the rest.

Thanks to the steady advance of science and technology, the stakes are now so high, the requirement for material resources and energy so intense, the numbers of people and the intricacy of the environment in which they live so great, that any stumble could mean so huge a smash as to make recovery impossible.

And, thanks to the steady advance of science and technology, the means for destruction in the hands of human beings is so great that the world could be ultimately devastated for thousands of years to come if we were to try to fight a war with all the power at our disposal.

But, then, thanks also to the steady advance of science and technology, there are possible solutions ahead if we care to take advantage of them.

Let us first list the major crises we will face in the 1980s.

First and most immediately crucial is the matter of energy. Our civilization runs on energy and always has. The history of humanity is that of the slow, but steady, increase in our ability to make use of greater and greater sources of energy, until finally, in the eighteenth century, we learned to make use of fossil fuels and to use them to run steam engines. With that began the modern age of industrialization.

The Industrial Revolution was powered by burning coal throughout the nineteenth century. That was good enough for the steam engine but the internal-combustion engine required liquid fuel, and in the twentieth century, with automobiles and airplanes leading the way, the world began to shift to oil. This accelerated and after World War II oil became the chief power source the world over. It was the most convenient and, for a while, the cheapest energy source the world had ever seen, and for thirty years the planet boomed.

But there is only so much oil in the ground and, at the present rate of use, it will all be gone in between thirty and fifty years.

At the present rate of use. If the rate of use increases, the rate of production cannot for very long keep pace. During the 1980s, the two lines could cross and production may fall below what people would like to be able to consume.

In fact, the 1970s were shaken by the advance tremors of the earthquake. The price of oil has risen steadily and rapidly since 1973. To be sure, this seems to be the result of the voluntary action of the oil-producing (OPEC) nations, but they are able to raise the prices when they do only because they know their customers must have the oil and that it will be in increasingly short supply.

Even if somehow the OPEC nations could be persuaded to sell their oil cheaply, or give it away for free, that wouldn't help. It would only mean that the oil would be used to a greater extent than ever and would run out sooner, and then would come the real disaster. In fact, it might be argued that OPEC is doing the world a favor by raising the price of oil. It encourages the world to use oil more sparingly so that it will last longer, and it also encourages the world to seek alternative sources of energy.

That is the first crucial life-and-death decision that the world must make in the 1980s.

Either the world will continue to rely on oil, burning it as quickly as it can, at any price, until there just isn't enough to be had so that the whole world breaks up into scavenging bands, each trying to survive at the expense of the others, and civilization is destroyed—or else the world must make the deliberate decision to spare oil, lower waste, and needless luxury use, and develop alternative sources of energy.

That or else decision must be reached before the end of the 1980s, or it could be too late to avoid catastrophe.

It is not likely that people will be able to concentrate on the great issue of energy and survival if their attention is distracted.Through all of history, there has been a tendency for nations to try to solve their problems through war. If the food supply is low, rob your neighbor; if the restlessness of the nobility threatens the stability of a nation, send them off on a crusade; if a well-trained army has nothing to do and is getting rusty, start a career of conquest.

Long-established habits are hard to break. Even if a nation realizes that it is no longer rational to make war, it will still go through the motions of preparing for one. After all, each nation asks itself, who knows if a neighbor nation might not be preparing for conquest? Besides almost every nation has some grievance against its neighbor, so that one seeks "justice" and the other fears "revenge."

The 1970s saw a number of wars in the Middle East, in the horn of Africa, in Southeast Asia. Even where there is no active war, terrorist activities are to be found in Northern Ireland, in Spain, in Italy, in Germany, and so on.

And every year, the world, as a whole, spends $500 billion on armaments.

Even small wars are destructive and they always threaten the possibility that the superpowers may be drawn in, and that a confrontation of ordinary missiles and explosives may turn into a war of nuclear weapons. Even if there were absolutely no wars, large or small, and no terrorism, as long as the nations prepare for war at the present rate, they waste energy in enormous quantities and hasten the day when energy-lack may topple civilization.

Besides, as long as every small group of people concentrates on its own short-range goals, its own "justice," its own "revenge," its own "national security," there will be no attention paid to the overall problems of survival that face civilization and humanity. And when civilization crumbles and billions die and humanity is reduced to broken bits of scavenging bands of tattered barbarians, where will all that justice and revenge and national security be?

So that is the second crucial life-and-death decision the world must make in the 1980s.

Either it will continue to behave as though the world were still a nineteenth-century conglomeration of nations, warring and preparing for war, each trying to improve its standing at the expense of the others, each trying to dominate its region, its continent, or the whole planet—or else the nations must make the deliberate decision to stand together and, understanding that the crisis in energy could put an end to all civilization everywhere, agree to a planetary attack on the crisis, leaving all minor problems to decision by arbitration, compromise, goodwill, and patience.

That or else decision must be reached before the end of the 1980s, or it is likely to be too late to help.

Even new sources of energy, no matter how copious and cheap, and even a cooperating group of nations, no matter how sincerely friendly, are not likely to solve the world's problems if the population of the earth continues to rise. If we continue to add somewhere between 1 and 2 percent to the population each year, the present 4,000 million will become 6,000 million by the year 2000. In the 1970s we added about 700 million people to the population of the world, and in the 1980s we may add 800 million.

We are not feeding the population of the world adequately now; we are sure to feed them less adequately if we add the equivalent of another India to the world in the 1980s. It will be all the worse as the energy supply becomes tighter and tighter, for one of the reasons we can manage to feed the world as well as we do right now is because, in some parts of the world, farming machinery, irrigation pumps, fertilizer, and pesticides are used. All of this requires much energy, and as the availability of energy declines so will the food supply.

This, then, is the third crucial life-and-death decision the world must make in the 1980s.

Either it will continue to increase its population so that there will be more and more starvation and an increasingly desperate need for food that will cause humanity to place more and more pressure on the environment (further reducing its food-growing capacity) until the nations of the world go to war with each other or break up into scavenging bands with each scrabbling for food that isn't there—or else humanity must make the deliberate decision to control population by limiting the birth rate everywhere.

That or else decision must be reached before the end of the 1980s, or it is likely to be too late to help.

It is easy to say or else, but how exactly can we implement that or else?

In the case of energy, the widespread use of oil, its cheapness and convenience, has allowed us to atrophy the use of other energy sources, but we can go back to them. We can build more and safer fission power plants, develop hydroelectric power, increase the use of coal or oil shale, grow plants especially designed to supply fuel, build windmills, make use of tides, of geothermal energy, and so on. All this would be difficult and would involve a good deal of effort and capital expenditure, but every bit we do in this direction will tend to conserve oil, stretch out the supply, and give us more time to further develop the alternative sources.

Meanwhile, we can use the extra time to obtain energy in completely new ways that may be even more convenient and cheaper than oil ever was.

One possible route is the development of nuclear fusion. We don't have it yet, even in the laboratory, though scientists have been working on it for thirty years, but we may find the answer in the 1980s—even though it will then take some decades to translate it into large, practical power stations.

Another route is the development of solar energy. This can be done, to begin with, in small-scale fashion in individual buildings, and that will spare oil. Eventually, solar energy can be used on a larger scale by coating large desert areas of the earth with photoelectric cells.

On a larger scale still, we can build solar power stations in space. We can imagine square miles of photoelectric cells exposed to radiation in space, in orbits that will place them in the earth's shadow for no more than 2 percent of the time and where there will never be any atmospheric interference at all. Numbers of such solar power stations can be built, and they may be an answer to the earth's energy problems for billions of years—if we last that long.

It's possible! The United States and the Soviet Union have shown that human beings could remain in space for three to six months at a time without bad effects. What's more, the United States has developed a "shuttle" spacecraft that can lift masses into space and return for more. The reusability of such a craft will greatly lessen the expense of spaceflight.

It is therefore possible now to make up our minds to begin a project of putting space to use—of collecting energy in space and beaming it down to the earth; of building space settlements to house men and women in small independent worlds of their own and leaving the building of further energy stations and other structures to them; of building a mining station on the moon to supply the metals, concrete, soil, glass, and oxygen for such settlements and such structures; of building observatories and laboratories and factories in space—in general of expanding the range of humanity from the world in which it has been confined through all its history to a much larger realm.

All this cannot be accomplished in the 1980s, but a beginning must be made. If, in the 1980s, we do notdecide to extend our reach into space, then thereafter it may well be too late. We will not have time to overtake catastrophe.

Can it be done if humanity insists on spending its time, its effort, its resources, its emotions on nineteenth-century national problems?

No, it can't; but then the true reach into space is beyond the capacity of any one nation in any case. It is a global project, and it should be encouraged as such and used to stimulate world cooperation.

If the peoples of the world recognize the great crisis of survival that faces them and further recognize the importance of building a space-oriented economy and society—of getting energy from space for all nations, for instance—then they may well be anxious to work together for it. Each nation, in fact, may fear being left out, may fear being unable to lay claim to its fair share of the benefits to be expected from space.

The United States and the Soviet Union, with the major space experience and the major capacities in this direction, should encourage cooperation between themselves and participation of all other nations, in however minor a capacity.

Around this, there may be built the framework of a world combination that will gradually develop into a federal government for dealing with world problems. Individual nations can continue to deal with their own special problems in their own special way. Indeed, if the world combines on the major problems, there will be no harm if the various nations break up into smaller units. It won't matter how many "nations" there are, how many newly independent Quebecs, Brittanies, Scotlands—if there is only one world government.

A world government cannot be accomplished in the 1980s, but a beginning must be made. If, in the 1980s, the nations of the world do not decide that cooperation for survival is an absolute requirement, then thereafter it may well be too late. We will not have time to overtake catastrophe.

Can all this be done, however, if population continues to increase?

No, it can't; but there are signs of a growing understanding of the problem. In more and more regions of the world, the birth rate is dropping. Sometimes it only requires the release of social pressure in favor of children. If the feeling grows that there is no moral disgrace in having few children or even no children, then the birth rate might drop at once. Allow women greater freedom to participate in the great work of the world, and the birth rate will drop. Adjust the tax pattern appropriately, and the birth rate will drop.

Since the birth rate has been dropping since the late 1970s, we can hope that the pattern will continue in the 1980s—everywhere.

We will not bring a halt to population increase in the 1980s, because it is hard to move great masses, but a beginning must be made. If, in the 1980s, the world does not decide that a great priority must be given the lowering of the birth rate by every humane measure possible, it may be too late thereafter. We will not have time to overtake catastrophe.

And, of course, if we place limits on population, the time will come when we can move more and more people out into space settlements—and then, out in space at least, population can grow again for a time.

Then, too, on the side of survival is the continuing development of science and technology—methods forincreasing food output, for safer contraception, for more efficient energy use, for better communications. Most of all we have the developing computer, growing ever more complex and versatile and capable of answering more and more difficult questions.

Problems that seem insoluble now may become soluble with properly programmed properly complex computers.

Well, then, which decision will the world make in the 1980s? How can one predict? It depends on the balance between the rational and the irrational, on the battle between the need to take a new path and the fear of leaving the old one, on whether there will be the imagination and vision that will leave the old quarrels behind, or the ingrained hatred that makes one content to die provided one has one's revenge.

I hope we will be rational, that we will change to the new, that we will have the vision to leave the old behind—but I cannot be sure we will.

At any rate, by the end of the 1980s, I feel that we will know what the decision has been.

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Neither of these two predictions are likely, but this is what pro-natalist propaganda does to people's brains.

2026-07-18T21:26:53+00:00

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Is THIS Modern Society?! The Absolute Chaos of an Overcrowded Chinese Mega-Mall!

2026-07-16T19:54:55+00:00

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The world 100 years from now, even with birth rates dropping. It's not an improvement over today, unfortunately. And it's not because of "demographic collapse".

2026-07-15T23:55:10+00:00

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Overconsumption: The Silent Engine Behind the Climate Crisis

2026-07-15T07:10:48+00:00

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OVERPOPULATION- AN ALTERNATE NARRATIVE

2026-07-15T08:12:54+00:00

In India, population has been the proverbial punching bag for the whole host of problems that the country has faced since independence (and even before that). India's high population and ever-increasing birth rates were held to be the primary driver of its ubiquitous poverty and anaemic growth in the pre-liberalization period (pre-1991). Since then, India's GDP has increased exponentially but many inherent problems remain uncomfortably visible. Public transport is perpetually overcrowded, cities are found lacking on the most basic fronts of sanitation, drinking water, clean air and job-seekers far outnumber the amount of productive employment in various sectors of our economy.

A lot of people (myself included) lay the blame of such squalor and misery squarely on the fact that India's population is just too high. The experience of states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, who managed to bring down their population growth levels and parallely, saw an improvement in their living standards and economic structure.

This belief of mine was tested, to an extent, when I recently read a remarkable piece by Sauvik Chakraverti (a doyen of Indian liberal thought) who made the argument that population increases prosperity. He says this particularly in the context of ever-burgeoning Indian cities (written in 2002, during the post-liberalization euphoria). Cities, for him, are the enablers of division and specialization of labour. The larger the city, the more complex and specialized the division of labour. He gives the example of cities like Tokyo, New York, London (among the most densely populated in the world) which were overpopulated but also extremely wealthy, with some of the highest per-capita incomes in the world. He did not see the two as divorced from each other, but saw wealth as an outcome of a city being populated to the brim and thus, enjoying unparalleled division of labour. Indian cities, he said, were not handicapped by the number of people living in them but by the inadequacy of the policy frameworks governing them.

Population, amidst all the din surrounding delimitation and the decisions of the current Finance Commission, has become an extremely polarizing issue. I find Chakraverti's views fascinating but I still find myself disagreeing with the notion of just packing more people in a city to achieve division of labour.

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Why are people so ignorrant about humanity slowly destroying Earth?

2026-07-14T21:55:44+00:00

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OVER-POPULATION: AN ALTERNATE TAKE

2026-07-15T06:14:52+00:00

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[Serious] What are actual alternatives to global immigration to prevent an unsustainably of population?

2026-07-14T23:11:18+00:00

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Overpopulation: A dimension totally ruled out

2026-07-14T18:09:01+00:00

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Companies and CEOs lie! There is no labor shortage. There is actually a job shortage.

2026-07-14T04:31:40+00:00

Jobs are vital resources.
No one wants to work as a Ford tech for free. No one wants to flip burgers while making lazy billionaires richer. If there is a labor shortage, they would open the border and allow more immigration.
https://youtu.be/ILr5zLwol1o?si=gbbi1xkMDcBjF2JO

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We Shouldn't Give Up on Slowing Population Growth

2026-07-12T12:33:57+00:00

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El Nino temps on top of severe fertilizer shortage caused by the blockage of strait of hormuz sets us for a coming global famines and huge increase in food prices, prepare for impact

2026-07-11T16:23:17+00:00

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