An environmental organization that does address the interntional issues of population is Population Connection at www.populationconnection.org on the web. The education and liberation of women does much to limit population growth. The neoliberal attack on women's rights goes along with their attack on birth control. The religious who want to dominate the world with their sect by outbirthing the pagans of another sect are also a pathetic hinderance to logical solutions to the human devastation of the biosphere. Social engineering a generation of social security can be done, reviving a hot unispecies planet cannot. In the political practice of gaining advocates together many try to avoid offending the religious and the racist and ... More »

A better way is ask if our planet has too many people is to cosider the question in terms whether the world has overreached its ability to sustain itself, given the number of people living on it as well as being born into it. Remember, almost half the people in the world today live below the subsistence level in utterly filthy, unhealthy conditions. What will happen to the environment, food production, resources, liveable space, etc. when they finally achieve even minimimal living standards? Simply, could our planet support everybody if every person had America's standard of living?

Population is a complex issue that this writer seems not to have researched well. In Europe and Japan, the worry is that there aren't enough children being born to support an aging retired population.

Somewhat rambling, more narrative than news. Seems to tie in a few viewpoints, but ignores the very relevant "ecological footprint" viewpoint.

While I've read about the population declines another reviewer mentions, the author does mention the pension argument--though she doesn't resolve it. Interestingly enough, I was just thinking the same thing as I read an article over lunch about eating locally. Nobody wants to talk about the reason we've paved over our farmlands--overpopulation. The author of that other article, like the activists Bunting interviewed, talked about pollution and energy use to transport food long distances. They talked about our hectic lifestyle. But, even though that author mentioned that the US population had doubled in just 20 years, he carefully ignored the elephant in the room when he talked about all the farmland lost to development. Our ... More »

Bunting raises important questions about our burgeoning world population and its consumption of resources by looking at England as an island with limited land. According to another report, soon if not now, most of the world's population will be urban, living in cities of millions - billions. Remember the predictions of the group Zero Population Growth?

The author leaves out the fact that despite increases in population commodity prices on an hours worked basis have been declining for 200 years. We can afford to pave over farmland because are farms are so much more productive. We have more trees because farms no longer need so much land.

This is a very poorly researched opinion piece. The world faces a serious problem of falling population. It has already hit Russia, Japan, Italy and other countries and the world's total population will peak within 40 to 50 years. The major population question is how the decreasing number of working-age people will manage to take care of the rapidly aging population. A second major issue the author neglected, and one that will make the population drop much worse than most people expect, is the shortage of women in south and east Asia caused by sex-selective abortion. There are now over 100 million fewer women than men in the age range under 25, and the deficit continues to grow. The author of this piece should have consulted ... More »