This is so complex, I don't know where to begin.
This, is true: There are too many people on the planet given current technology.
But you can unpack that so many ways. There were too many people on the planet in 1250 CE given the technology of the time. This is why the Black Death was so devastating. If it had hit in 1100 CE, it would not have been so destructive. The problem was that from 1000 CE to 1250 CE, the climate was really favorable to humans (meaning, to agriculture) and population expanded significantly. People were also living and farming at higher altitudes and latitudes because of the "good" climate.
Around 1250, the climate worsens and by the early 14th century you have the first widespread famine in a couple of centuries. The land becomes less productive, food becomes more scarce, the population is generally malnourished and weak. When the Black Death shows up in Europe, it's devastating because so many people are on the edge nutritionally as a result of the climate change.
It takes over two hundred years for population to recover in some parts of Europe and the specter of famine returns and, indeed, there are some food shortages as we hit the Mini Ice Age of the late sixteenth century. But a funny thing happens, technology improves faster than population.
We don't think of these technological changes, but some of them are big - crop rotation, switching from oxen to horses for plowing and things like that make huge changes.
Now we're in a new era of stress where once again there are too many people on the planet given current technology.
Reducing the number of people is only one approach to the problem. An all-out war on climate change and habitat destruction is another.
We are incredibly inefficient as a species. We have houses with roofs that could be solar energy factories or food gardens, but they are just dead space. We have roads that could be solar panels and massive stadium parking lots that are empty 90% of the time that could be solar farms. Not to mention that as we automate, we will have no real need for massive parking lots outside of factories and warehouses. There will be relatively few people inside them anyway. And even that is not to mention that a fully automated warehouse can be about half the size of an equivalent one run by humans.
I could go on, but, in this crowd, I know pretty much everyone here has already given it some thought. So... I'll just add this... Someone here has a signature with the HG Wells quote “Civilization is a race between disaster and education.”
I think you could say that "Avoiding disaster is a race between population and technology." That's not quite right, because the footprint of one American is equivalent to many, many Africans.
My only point is that we are facing a challenge similar to the 14th century, but we are armed with a solid analysis. We know
- population is stabilizing. Birth rates in China are now similar to the West. India is currently at levels equivalent to US/Eur in 1965 and dropping. Sub-Saharan Africa is still an outlier, but it will come down too
- but as the world gets richer, we need technology that can give a high standard of living to more people.
So the question is: can our tech solve problems fast enough that it can service a population that is growing, but ever slower, before disaster arrives.
Or put another way: the problem is never "population" - we could probably add another few billion people, as we are slated to do, and yet dramatically reduce the footprint of humanity (as we should and must).
- switch to renewable energy
- develop meat substitutes
- denser housing
- less wasted space (roofs, parking lots).
- etc
The graphic is from p. 35 of
http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
