Overpopulation - The Solution Stares Us In The Face

Comment by Ethan Walden on April 26, 2010 at 9:22pm

"Population densities are increasing, hand in hand with poverty and hunger. China alone is responsible for 1.4 billion of the 6 billion people on this planet."

You need to consider what we define as overpopulation,
if you define it as an equilibrium between the available resources and the people,
then a couple that is very poor, should have no children, ok.
What about a person that doesn't have enough resources to eat, etc.
that's a clear unbalance between his/her resources and hi/her needs,
so following that logic that person constitutes "overpopulation"
an excess.
Another way of looking at this issue is to empower the population,
not with the purpose of having them reproduce less so as to balance
the resources with the needs, but with the purpose of empowering them
to increase their resources so as to balance the equation.
From this latter perspective "overpopulation" would be called "underdevelopment"
or "under-empowerment".

Regarding the country that is responsible for a quarter of the world population,
it seems to have the same education rate than the US or Europe in the map you present,
and it's population growth was curtailed not by education but by one child laws.

The population density of the poorest countries like those in Africa,
is not greater than that of China, or a lot of countries in Europe,
but you never hear of overpopulation in Belgium of France, right?

"Overpopulation" has become an euphemism for underempowerment,
and the "empowerement" you propose appears to me to be
an euphemism for depopulation.

Comment by Martin Dyer on April 26, 2010 at 10:05pm

Thank you for your comments! You definitely bring up some great points. I can certainly understand the flaws that you have pointed out. Maybe I have placed too much emphasis on population density rather than the equilibrium which you talk of. I also don't think that women empowerment is the only solution but a significant one - definitely with regards to Africa in general.

We need to face the fact that we can't keep living on this planet with our current resources, with our population constantly increasing. Maybe depopulation, as you put it, is the way forward (cruel as it sounds!). I'm proposing that women empowerment is the best way (with emphasis on Africa I might add in hindsight).The child laws are evidently another.

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