Episode 1: Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth

Our bloated world population is made possible by fossil fuels that we are using as if they were limitless. If not for fossil fuel we would not be able to supply food or maintain such large populations with their complex economies and societies. If you don't believe this, look into how much synthetic fertilizer and pesticides are dumped on food crops to produce the high yields (and ever increasing yields) people refer to on this site. These fertilizers and pesticides are derived from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, and other nutrients whose manufacture would not be possible on such a large scale otherwise. The world supply of petroleum, on top of which natural gas reserves sit, is peaking as we speak or probably has already peaked according to most experts, even the petroleum industry. Unless we find another way to create these synthetic fertilizers, for which there are no other production methods that are possible on such a large scale in the absense of fossil fuel, we will not be able to maintain the food production that makes our large population possible. The increase in price of petroleum will make farming on such a large scale much more expensive and the price of food will skyrocket. Along with climate change, the erratic effects of which are likely lead to massive yield reductions like those seen this season in the US, these changes to agriculture are likely to greatly impact food supply. Switching to organic methods or draft animal power will mean a drastic reduction in food supply(unless we all become vegetarian), because these non fossil fuel methods are less productive, and will thus require a drastic reduction in food demand.

Look around you and see how everything you depend on is created using or is derived from, fossil fuel. Plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, and pesticides are made directly using fossil fuel, while everything else, metal, wood, glass, is shaped by the power of fossil fuel. These are the things that make it possible for us to have such a large population. We couldn't maintain large cities without cars and highways, because people couldn't get from place to place in them and they couldn't have their food and other resources shipped to them from far across the world. Population only really began to increase dramatically with industrialization and the exploitation of fossil fuel. It made possible the green revolution that followed WWII and made possible massive increases in crop yield. This led to the increase of meat heavy diets of those in rich countries, because animal feed crops could be grown much more cheaply.

I think you all need to learn a lot more about population to have a website about it. Also, instead of just allowing the comments from people you can easily respond to or who support your ideas to be seen, maybe you could include comments that have good information that fuels a good discussion. This is just a propaganda site using pseudo-science to support its false claims. You leave out much information necessary to actually understand this complex issue.

I'm not a part of this website but I can answer the question about the population of India and China.

China is growing because until recently they had a relatively young population so these people were able to begin having children recently (but only 1 per family due to the one child policy in China). Also their healthcare is getting better so people are living much longer. However their fertility rate is only 1.7 children born per woman. A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to replace the current population. So they will begin to have a decline in population very soon. Currently they have more than 1.33 billion people, in 2050 they will be down to 1.29 billion, and in 2100 they are projected to only have 940 million! (my source is geography.about.com's list of the most populous countries) This decline in population will likely continue although projections don't go out that far.

India will keep growing for a while but will also begin to suffer a population decline before the end of the century. Currently their fertility rate is 2.8 children born per woman which is still above the replacement rate of 2.1 but that is down from about 6 per woman in 1950. Their fertility rate is falling fast and will soon be below replacement levels so their population will start to decline. Today India has 1.24 billion people, in 2050 they will have 1.69 billion, and in 2100 that will begin to fall to 1.55 billion. Again that trend will probably continue into the future.

As far as the target population I wouldn't think there should not be any target population. We should let individuals decide how many children to have and not seek to artificially limit the population. Although ideally the population should continue to grow and not decline because there are lots of advantages that come with a growing population.

Malthus missed the coming of the heat engine, that is, useful work done by exosomatic energy such as coal or oil. The supply of food is limited in one sense by the ability to plow, plant, and harvest. All are processes that require energy. If accomplished by human labor, one could see how that would place an upper limit on how much food could be produced. Give mechanization, fewer people can produce much more food. Add to that natural gas, methane, some chemistry and you can add synthetic fertilizers to the mix. But, we must also remember that fossil fuels are finite resources and as reserves diminish, the rates of production will also diminish. And right now, the Earth's rate of production of petroleum is peaking, as will coal and nature gas in a few decades. Over the course of several decades we'll see fossil energy play an steadily decreasing role in the world's economy. Eventually our capacity to do work, such as the aforementioned plowing, planting, and harvesting will likewise diminish. The projections for the world's population are for it to peak in a few decades and then decline. The question is whether it will decline fast enough to keep pace with a diminishing food supply. Of course, when all the fossil fuels are gone, they'll be limited by solar inputs, just as in Malthus' time. But, that's just one aspect of modern agriculture. Topsoil loss, urban expansion, fresh water, transport, etc. also figure in the equation. Fifty years from now it might well be anybody's guess as to whether or not we can feed everyone. If current trends are any indication, it doesn't look good.

It seems like most of the commenters haven't watched the other videos. On the food topic specifically, the US currently produces significantly more grain from a smaller amount of land than it did 40 years ago. As time goes on and agricultural technology continues to improve, we will continue to get more bang for our buck.

Consider how much food could be produced if, say, Africa was producing food with the efficiency/agricultural technology of America.

1) You are failing to account for is a biological property known as carrying capacity, the ability of this planet to support (provide food, clothing, shelter etc) is much more constrained than the surface area available to put people.

2) The UN does not estimate a population peak in 2040. The estimate for 2100 is that there will be more than 10 billion people and that we will be adding more than 5.5 million people per year at that point.

3) If you wish to understand population growth rate, I recommend watching: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY.

I have not found many explanations about the causes and impact of the population growth of these two countries. It would be great if you could explain it here.
Also, according to you, what is the right population number that we should target?

Yes, but the low variant projections kept coming true, perhaps thanks to those infamous "one-child" or "birth-control" policies? So, once you abandon them or even worse encourage more births, the tendency of the population rate will not remain the same.
And by the way, 66'x66' for a family is really not very comfortable, and Texas is NOT a tiny portion of the INHABITABLE Earth. Well, if you say Sahara or Taklamakan Deserts or Scandinavian highlands or Canadian north are inhabitable, then there is not much to say...

Yes, it would be true that you can fit the entire world's population into texas, but how would you feed all those people? 75% of the entire earth's land mass is dedicated into farmland, to produce the food necessary.

The argument that we have plenty of room to keep expanding the population seems somewhat short-sighted. When early Americans began cutting the giant Sequoias, they thought there would always be plenty of wood--surely, they would never run out of trees in the forest.

We may only be a few drops in the bucket, but when the drops keep coming, the bucket will eventually become full. It's more about quality of life than simply sustaining humans on the planet.

By focusing entirely on Malthus, you are missing the point completely. Malthus was wrong, yes, but overpopulation is still a problem. Just because Malthus's notions were wrong, doesn't mean that overpopulation isn't a problem or that there aren't viable solutions to this problem. You are throwing out the baby with the bath water.