Inevitably, when we are looking for root causes to address our current problems, we need to face the elephant in the room.
Overpopulation.
Many people seem to think it’s not such a problem anymore, because it’s not in the news. Think again: it is in the news, constantly, but that news refers to the effects of overpopulation (food & water scarcity, wars, climate change, and more). But if we don’t find ways (humane ways) to reduce population growth then most of our solutions will basically fight symptoms, and not address causes.
A graph:
(ganked from “Living with a Changing Water Environment” from the National Academy of Engineering)
It shows that even in the lowest estimate the world population will peak at 9 billion. That’s the best case scenario.
Therefore, “Climate Change is not the Story of Our Times” (New York Times article, via World Changing). And at World Changing itself: “Peak Population and Generation X“.
Two articles following on each other’s heels (one from November 28, the other from today). They mention the elephant in the room by name.
Writers (and readers, and basically everybody): pay attention. Absorb. Then think about solutions. Very hard.
(And yes: I will post in greater length about this, after I’ve finished a great amount of outstanding items. Hopefully before Christmas.)
UPDATE: Scientific American chimes in with a ’60 second science’ post on the same topic. It bears repeating, every time. And everyone, me certainly included, is in on it late in the game ever since the Club of Rome‘s The Limits to Growth.
Shineanthology's Weblog 
Great post! Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. I’m not talking just about the obvious problems that we see in the news – growing dependence on foreign oil, carbon emissions, soaring commodity prices, environmental degradation, etc. I’m talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight third world countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China – as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don’t know how else to inject this new perspective into the overpopulation debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”