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Talk:Overpopulation

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Many critics point out that, in the absence of other measures, simply feeding the world's population well would only make matters much worse, quickly causing the population to quickly balloon to absolutely unsustainable levels, and resulting in mass famine, disease and other human misery on a scale unimaginable even today.

....although in fact, within a generation after the standard of living and life expectancy starts increasing, family sizes start dropping: the demographic transition. That's why every estimate of maximum global population since the 1960s, when the "population explosion" became a worry, has been significantly lower than the previous estimates. Popularisers of overpopulation doomsday like to quote the famous overcrowded breeding rats experiment: feeding rats might make their populations balloon, but human beings aren't rats, and don't breed like rats - the ecologist Paul Colinvaux points this out very readably in Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare, and The Fates of Nations. Interestingly, the Limits to Growth computer study of the early 1970s, amongst other counterfactual elements in their model, assumed that people will have more children as their standard of living rises. They actually have less; Western European population would now be steadily declining if we didn't have any immigration. Malcolm Farmer

Something like the above should be incorporated into the article, since there's clearly more than one POV on the subject. Wesley

• Done. -- April 10:19 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

I recall dimly that a few major predictions garnered worldwide attention and even some political action, but that each of these predictions was far off the mark. I'd like to see some hard facts to enlighten the gloom of the musty dungeons of my mind... --Ed Poor

And, as far as the doomsday predictors, I have several points: 1. They were seldom wrong in principle. They simply did not anticipate the technological advances and geographic expansions that made further population increases possible. 2. The expanding populations over the past couple of hundred years have resulted in environmental degradation that's quite beyond the capacity of most people to comprehend. People who don't understand what HAS happened look out at the world today and see what they think is a healthy world, and they're unaware of the scale of damage that's already occurred. 3. Doomsday scenarios are already here, and are already going on and have been for quite some time. I can point to many disease, famines, wars, environmental disasters and the like that are directly linked to overpopulation, especially over the past fifty years, and they're getting worse. The evidence is present and current.

John Knouse

Thanks for explaining that, John. And welcome to Wikipedia!! Please tell us more about overpopulation, famine and environmental degradation -- especially as it relates to the status of women (equal to men vs. second-class) and technological advances. Another factor is political/economic system, e.g., famine deaths in North Korea and forced collective farming. Oops, I didn't mean to tell you how to write the article, I'm just listing some factors of personal interest. Please tell us anything you'd like! :-) --Ed Poor

Famine and diseases really has NOTHING to do with overpopulation. It has to do with the very unequal distribution of wealth in the world. Capitalism leads to starvation and is the evil that might end all life on this planet. But thats a different topic I guess.

I thought I saved the world by redirecting the POV-Monster-written "Population explosion" page here. Boy I was wrong, this is blatanly not NPOV. -- Rotem Dan 11:12 21 May 2003 (UTC)

The article states:

Over the two hundred years which followed, Malthusian catastrophes have overtaken numerous individual regions.

Can you please give some examples, with cites? Karada 11:21 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Whatever for? History is littered with examples, and they are to be seen right now in action. Looked at Mauritania lately? Or Sudan? Or indeed any of the countries where population control by mass starvation is a regular thing. PS: please do not be misled by the placement of a heading in the middle of a sentence a while back. I have corrected that. It would be good to discuss some examples in this entry, of course. I've got far too much on to take this article onto my to-do list anytime soon, but as it stands it's a disgracefully lightweight entry for such a major issue, and I hope tht someone will take it on board and expand it. Tannin

OK, that's two examples. This article would benefit by expanding on them, with cites to WHO statistics, etc. Actual facts are always better than assertions. What about Amartya Sen's theories of famine? Karada 11:48 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It's far too short and light on detail.

Alas I am knee deep in work right now, so we will have to hope for another volunteer. I haven't read Sen and only know of him by reputation. I'm not sure that this article would be the best place to go into his work, but (if in doubt) I always say "write it to start with, and then figure out the best place to put it when it's finished and you can see what shape it's in". So by all means, write it up. I'll read with interest. But first .. I have to get some sleep. Tannin

Whooah there Karada. You now have the article defining "Mathlusian catrastrophe" as "mass death by famime", and then saying "there have been lots of mass deaths by famine but maybe they weren't Mathlusian catrastrophes because a Mathlusian catrastrophe is a mass death by famine, but these were mass deaths by famine. Tannin

RD: Overpopulation is not a "theory". Overpopulation is a condition or a phenomenon. There is no theory about it. The question is not "can there be such a thing as overpopulation?" Of course there can. It doesn't matter how much food you can produce on the planet, because for any amount there is a number of people such that it is insufficent to feed them all. (Overpopulation is not just about food, of course, but that will do as an example.)

The question is "do we have this thing called overpopulation", or "are we going to have this thing called overpopulation?"

There are theories about population and overpopulation, but the thing itself is a theory only in the same sense that other abstract concepts like "length" or "weight" are "theories". Tannin

Yes I know, checked other encyclopedias google, etc.. I'm no scientict (check out my summaries), be bold, correct it.. I have been awake for 26 hours weeee :) (check out my contribution-list if you don't believe) -- Rotem Dan 13:24 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Done. -- Rotem Dan 13:37 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I think the ambigious term "overpopulation" and "population explosion" is overused:

• A City is said to be "overpopulated" (e.g. tokyo)
• Dogs, cats et al are "overpopulating" the streets (nice, let's sterialize/eliminate them)
• humans are supposedly "overpopulating" the world
• School classrooms are "overpopulated" (yes it's used around israel, at least)
• china, india are "exploding"
• everything that looks crowded is "exploding"
• a 5 room apartement with 6 people is "overpopulated"
• a 5 room apartement with 9 people is "overpopulated"
• a 5 room apartement with 12 people is "exploding"
• etc. etc.

Excellent example of using language as a way of extracting pitty and sentiments from others, no insight for an encyclopedia (what's on the dictionary is enough for a definition) -- Rotem Dan 16:07 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I moved the list of cities to population density: high population density is not necessarily overpopulation (consider an anthill). I was in New York and London recently: no signs of mass starvation in either as of the time of writing. The Anome 14:13 21 May 2003 (UTC)

True, overpopulation is not synonymous with overpopulation. But for example, Tokyo or NYC is sure overpopulated no? -- Taku 14:20 21 May 2003 (UTC)

But: people choose to live in these places, in preference to the surrounding lower-populated areas where there is also abundant economic activity. Surely if they don't like it, they wouldn't live there? The Anome

I am not sure what you mean. Population density is a simple measure that can tell you the city is in the condition of overpopulation. What's wrong with stating Tokyo is overpopulated? -- Taku 14:41 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, the definition of overpopulation in the opening paragraph is a situation when the population of a given area is greater than the surrounding ecosystem can support. If Tokyo's ecosystem is able to support its population, i.e. it's not running out of food, water, air, etc., than according to that definition it's not overpopulated. On the other hand, it's conceivable that a village of only 50 people in a remote desert may be overpopulated if the limited availability of water and plants will only support a village of up to 30 people. Such a village would be overpopulated, although its population density would be very low. Does this make sense? Or is the definition of overpopulation in error? Wesley 14:48 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Tokyo, or New York, or most other cities, are overpopulated by this definition. They all require massive inputs of food, water, and power from outside, removal of waste, etc., otherwise the people would be quickly overrun by starvation and disease. Graft 15:39 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Now I see. (To be honest, the opening paragraph doesn't make sense at all to me). I think the trouble is either we talk about overpopulation with Darwinism or simple social issue, in other words, context problem. My definition of overpopulation is a social issue, so overpopulation is in other words, simply too much people. See it's not neither density nor mere number of people. Overpopulation becomes a huge social issue because it causes

• lack of housing or any other place (the same trouble with high density)
• trouble with transporation
• deteriation in life standard

Most people talk about overpopulation in terms of resource strain - housing and transportation don't come into it. People don't give a shit that there's a million homeless living in cardboard shacks in Bombay, they are worried about the fact that all these people are eating and defecating, and thus are using up precious resources. Graft 15:39 21 May 2003 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying overpopulation is not an issue of housing or transporation? -- Taku 15:53 21 May 2003 (UTC)

No, i'm saying it's not treated that way. Most frequently it's treated as an issue of food (see above), i.e., "There's too many people to feed!", or resource consumption, i.e., "We are running out of trees, gas, and arable land to support all these people!". I.e., overpopulation is not treated as a problem for the, err, overpopulating, but for everyone else. Or, anyway, that's how I read it, when people in the first world complain about third-world overpopulation - "those damn brown people are using up our precious resources". Maybe I'm just a bitter, bitter man. It might be nice if it were treated the way you took it, but I don't think that's how most people who write books and such on the subject look at it. Graft 15:58 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Anyone have references to the studies that population growth decrease has the greatest correlation to the level of education in an area?

AIDS, While The World SLeeps: The First Twenty Years of the Global AIDS Plague		Sleep With the Angels: A Mother Challenges AIDS		Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2004: The Travel Skills Handbook		Sleep and Dream Research
How to Get Your Baby to Sleep : America's Foremost Baby and Childcare Experts Answer the Most Frequently Asked Questions		The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test		Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year		A Woman's Guide to Sleep : Guaranteed Solutions for a Good Night's Rest
Getting Your Child to Sleep...and Back to Sleep: Tips for Parents of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers