I think keeping our lifestyles is the answer. Many Americans live unsustainable lifestyles.

I recommend you hop a plane and look down at earth; there’s a lot of it. In many places you can’t even tell if man has ever been there. In a word, I completely reject your claims, but so long as you don’t have a lever to control my life, it’s cool. Go on hoping to limit the quantity (and quality) of life.

Mr. Saxton’s and Mr. Talbott’s letters are correct in stating that population growth is an encroaching problem.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the population of the United States was 180 million, is 307 million today, and is projected to become 439 million by 2050. Despite widespread opinion that immigration is the sole cause, the Population Reference Bureau has stated that more than 50% of this insane growth is due to fertility.

Again according tho the Census Bureau, 71.7% of U.S. women (responsibly) complete their families with two or fewer children (including zero).

Are we doing this again? Why don’t you idiot liberals slit your throats and that way you will be doing your part to improve your planet that you are so concerned about. You nuts just wont stop! Please put yourself out of your misery so you dont try to spread it to those of us who love our country and our planet!

Maybe that’s one of the ideas for the lack of support for healthcare reform, maybe it’s their intent that only the worthy who can afford it or as luck has it, will survive. The lack of insurance reform to make insurance affordable for all and have access to quality healthcare is the only way that many more will not die.

Is this why we are experiencing so many dying than ever before due to the lack of insurance? 40,000 isn’t it, because people think we must control the population? This is crazy talk!

@egoist: Earth might, currently, be rather “empty” (although of course other animals and indigenous folks might argue that, but you probably don’t care what they have to say anyway), but if current trends were to continue into the future that would change—and quickly, I might add. It might not ever “fill up,” but it will definitely get to a point that we could consider crowded. Fun fact: when Europeans decided to colonize America they thought Europe was already over-crowded. The US is more densely populated now than Europe was then.

Anyway…

In the summer of 1986, the news reports indicated that the world population had reached the number of five billion people growing at the rate of 1.7% per year. Well, your reaction to 1.7% might be to say “Well, that’s so small, nothing bad could ever happen at 1.7% per year.” So you calculate the doubling time, you find it’s only 41 years. Now, that was back in 1986; more recently in 1999, we read that the world population had grown from five billion to six billion . The good news is that the growth rate had dropped from 1.7% to 1.3% per year. The bad news is that in spite of the drop in the growth rate, the world population today is increasing by about 75 million additional people every year.

Now, if this current modest 1.3% per year could continue, the world population would grow to a density of one person per square meter on the dry land surface of the earth in just 780 years, and the mass of people would equal the mass of the earth in just 2400 years. Well, we can smile at those, we know they couldn’t happen. This one make for a cute cartoon; the caption says, “Excuse me sir, but I am prepared to make you a rather attractive offer for your square.”

There’s a very profound lesson in that cartoon. The lesson is that zero population growth is going to happen. Now, we can debate whether we like zero population growth or don’t like it, it’s going to happen. Whether we debate it or not, whether we like it or not, it’s absolutely certain. People could never live at that density on the dry land surface of the earth. Therefore, today’s high birth rates will drop; today’s low death rates will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value. That will certainly be in a time short compared to 780 years….

Source: Al Bartlett’s Arithmetic, Population and Energy.

Or, if you prefer, you can watch this eight minute video that expresses some of the same ideas.

Tony, Your European example makes a point: at a certain tech / wealth level, it can seem crowded (if you live in grass-roof houses with mud roads, for example). If technology is choked (and I think much of the culture seems to be anti-energy, for example), then yes, by that measure we will be crowded out to death.

It’s a little like claiming we’re just about out of oil. Yes, with a certain limited capability (Jed’s gun into the bog) oil was limited. But you can’t discount improvements that permit deeper and more complex extraction.

And, if we can’t expect tech-improvements making life more plentiful and wealthy, why can you expect planetary saturation (going back 200+ years)?

Great post by stuperdave…
And what’s all this talk about global warming and world hunger?
Bunch of idiots…Where’s my Cheetos!

D Walker said “Is this why we are experiencing so many dying than ever before due to the lack of insurance? 40,000 isn’t it”

So, if I go to the coroner’s office and look at one of these 40,000 death certificates, it will say “Cause of Death: Lack of Insurance” ????

Some people are really conflicted and confused.

They want less population growth, but more healthcare for longer life expectancy.

They want less population growth, but want to suppress nature’s control mechanisms such as wars, famine, and disease.

They want less population growth, but create disaster prevention and relief programs to save lives.

They want less population growth, but want to eliminate gun ownership, drunk driving, smoking, and obesity.

It’s that doggone mathematics again. More additions and fewer subtractions result in a larger sum.

How sad it must be to live in abject frustration at not having complete control of the universe and all within it. At least they can be sure their worry bucket will never be empty.