is the world overpopulated?

[mrmcdonaldduck]

is 6, nearly 7 billion people too much?

i read somewhere that 11 billion is the carrying capcity, but at what cost to our planet and ourselves?

what do you think about human pop. and do you think we should have birth control, eg one child like in china or should we kill off old people once they reach a certain age?(maybe a bit extreme).

[Commander Thor]

Nope, not too much at all.

The term carrying capacity, simply means, the population of a certain species that a environment can sustain. We are no where near that. And with the invent of hydroponic farming, we could easily sustain 20 billion.

In places like China where living space is at a premium, a 'child limit' is near necessary. But in places such as the US where we have room to grow, a child limit sort of deal isn't really necessary.

[Whisper]

theirs a HUGE article in Scientific America about this
yes it is

To split the land up in nations when talking about this is retarded
the fact of the matter is we are on one tiny speck in a VERY LARGE universe, an island lost at sea that we cannot get off of
everything is finite


it may not be in the first world for the most part the first world nations are either stable or in a slight decline for populations

but in third and fourth world nations populations are exploding
why? i have no idea
they can't sustain it
nowhere near
starvation, malnutrition, and disease are running rampant in these areas already
but w/e

[Sage]

It's not so much a matter of how many people there are as it is how we make do on this planet and take care of it.

[JackOfClubs]

It depends on where everybody lives. Like in parts of China, for example, they are extremely crowded into small areas. But in Europe and the Americas, some people have acres and acres of land. I didn't vote because the world is always changing. And if people spread out a bit more, no, we are nowhere near overpopulated.

[Atonement]

I think we are over populated. With about 2.7 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, and we sit here spoiled, why do we need more people if we can't care for our humanity as it is?

[Commander Thor]

I love how alot of you are viewing this as/turning this into a political issue, it's not really.
Simple question, can the Earth as a whole sustain more than 7 Billion people? Yes it can.

I do, however, understand where you're coming from though, human greed will stunt the population in certain areas, and let it thrive in others.

[INFERNO]

The Earth as a whole can sustain more people, however, certain places on the Earth are packed to the gills (i.e. China). So in certain places on Earth, a max. amount of children or people in an area becomes necessary.

But to answer for whether it's over-populated requires another question to be answered: do we want to consider how well we could function at those higher levels? The Earth could probably sustain double the population but the functioning then is called into question. If there's more people, we need more houses so there goes the greenspace.

An ideal human population, probably around 10-11 billion.

[sebbie]

The ideal level of population would be where there are enough resources (subsistence) available for everyone. Of course are population levels growing at the same rate as resource levels? I don't think so.

[ManyPearTree]

Think it is..

[sebbie]

Think it is..

I think that Malthus's theory is correct:

Population grows at a geometric rate: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128....
and
Subsistence grows at a arithmetic rate: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...

Essentially population is outgrowing resources and that is is made even "worse" by the problems with the distribution of resources.

EDIT: The numbers are just a simpler way to illustrate the theory. So I am hoping no one is going to start jumping at me saying " OMFG da population doesn't grow lyke dat LOLZ!!!!111 "

[OneManArmy]

It depends, in India and China, yes it's over populated, those 2 countries alone make up like 35-40% of the entire world population. But in places like EU (well the EU really isn't a place), and the USA, it's isn't overpopulated, there's still a lot of room. I think if everyone is equally distributed by population density, then I say that 10 million is really the max.

[YourFriend]

It depends on where everybody lives. Like in parts of China, for example, they are extremely crowded into small areas. But in Europe and the Americas, some people have acres and acres of land. I didn't vote because the world is always changing. And if people spread out a bit more, no, we are nowhere near overpopulated.

Agree. Earth can sustain allot more people, allot. But, human race cannot sustain more humans. Makes sense?