I. The Effects of Overpopulation

Thomas Robert Malthus theorized that all species have a “carrying capacity”, or a maximum number of members of a species that could live in a given area without overusing their resources. The trend is that when a food source grows in population, so does the population of predators, but the predators always overgrow and overeat, resulting in a swift decrease the population of the prey, which in turn starves the predators. Malthus believed that humans are condemned always to breed to the point of misery and the edge of starvation. If 7.6 billion humans were dropped onto the planet without current technology, most of them would starve to death. Humans are well over carrying capacity, but all the technology we invent “cheats” this system. Technological, agricultural, and medical improvements have allowed humans to better survive, and for longer. The problem is that our systems of cheating cause the destruction of resources that took millions of years to form. The organization Greenpeace claims that “A quarter of the forest lost from the last 10,000 years has been destroyed in the last 30 years.”

All resources are either renewable or nonrenewable. A renewable resource is a resource that can be used repeatedly and replaced naturally, like water, and trees. Non-renewable resources are resources of economic value that cannot be readily replaced by natural means on a level equal to its consumption, like coal, or oil. The thing is, the objects in these categories have not been updated to modern consumption rates. Greenpeace also claims that the deforestation is so bad that many scientists think the earth is entering it’s 6th major extinction event in history. Trees are being cut down faster than they can regrow, making it a nonrenewable resource. Conservation of resources, like conservation of money, is something that should be done before the lack of resources is causing problems. Budgets are best made before you go broke. But currently, no laws are being passed to save trees. All this tree hugging talk might be making me seem like a crazy hippie, but I assure you, trees are the lifeblood of human society. It makes light, shelter, purifies water, and keeps us warm.

One cause of overpopulation is our amazing medical technology. Humans used to not live as long, and less of their children would survive, meaning population growth was very slow. The British industrial revolution sparked a higher standard of living resulting in a more stable population increase. After the discovery of antibiotics in 1928, the survival rate skyrocketed. But since people take forever to die now, they clog up the earth. By 2050, 25% of the population will be over 60 years old. At a projected 9.6 billion humans overall in 2050, 25% translates to 2.4 billion people over 60, people that would not be here without modern medicine.

In a New York Times article entitled Overpopulation is Not the Problem, author Erle C. Ellis attempts to make the case that there is no carrying capacity on humans. He claims that the same innovative thought that got humans to 7.6 million will also be used to figure out how to sustain such growth. He insists that humanity is not like bacteria in a petri dish, which grows until it reaches the dish’s walls, but that we are instead an ever growing species. The problem with his theory is that he relies on the constant innovation of man. He thinks that there will always be a genius to tell humans how to better distribute and transport resources. But just as humanity knows that oil will not last forever, it should also know that it’s other renewable resources are not going to last either. As I said earlier, budgets should be made before you go broke. It is never a good idea to expect the maximum will always be available, so we need a plan now.

Overpopulation is a main cause of many modern problems, like unemployment. When you think about it, jobs are just as much a product as the products provided by them. An employer “supplies” jobs, and laborers “consume” jobs. A basic principle of life is that you cannot supply products you do not have the ability to make. When there are more people than there are jobs, not everyone gets a job. This link between unemployment and overpopulation is backed up by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the National Institutes of Health. The lack of supply to meet the demand from a larger population is also present in regular resources. Food and shelter will become more and more expensive as the population keeps taking and taking the supply.

These problems give birth to an even bigger one: War. The want for resources breeds conflict. The Romans conquered the Mediterranean territory for all of it’s resources. The American Revolution was fought because England needed resource colonies in order to prosper, but the Americans did not like how their resources were being taxed. The civil war was fought over the American South’s desire to use human resources to produce other resources more efficiently. World War II was started when Hitler started invading other lands for their resources. The point is that when one country runs out of the things they need for survival, they will fight other countries for those things.

II. A Brand New World

I have some theories for how to run a new society without overtaxing resources. Think, if we had all the resource management techniques of today, but with only 1 billion people on one continent, the other continents would have a few generations to run wild. My system combines Chinese birthing laws, mass immigration, and gladiator fights to encourage a sustainable new world.

The first part of the first phase of my world is the reduction phase. Obviously 7.6 billion people won’t drop down overnight. Before we start chopping away at the population, we need a target population.For starters I will use the minimum number of humans scientists calculated to make a sustainable space colony, which is 160 people. This gives on average, 10 possible mates per person, which is higher than the current average of 6 partners before “finding the one.” Some may ask about possible consequences of a whole population coming from a relatively small population size. This can be solved by returning to civilization after 200 years, but this could be solved by scaling the minimum population of 160 by a factor of 10 million, for a total target population of 1.6 billion humans. How this is achieved can be quite varied.

A tried and tested method of population control is limiting the number of children per 2 people to 1. This method was attempted in China to control the rampant population increase promoted by Mao Zedong. It resulted in 400 million fewer births over 30 years. Giving birth at a 1 to 2 ratio should theoretically halve the population every generation. At that rate, it will take 2 generations to drop down to 1.9 billion people. At this point, you could change the birth limit to 2 children per marriage, stabilizing the population by replacing parents at a 1 to 1 ratio.
To drop down the population by in a more controlled fashion, I would recommend mandatory gladiator fights at the end of high school. In order to keep those who focused on honing their mind rather than body safe to survive and better society, there would be challenging exemption tests. Historian George Ville calculated that the ancient gladiators of Rome had a 9.5% chance of death per fight against another gladiator, which is far to low for a substantial decrease. That was because gladiators were more for entertainment than they were for violence, so generally the emperor would let the loser survive to entertain another day. If we were going for a halving of generations, the death rate would have to be upped to 100%. The gladiators would fight with bare hands, to the death, to truly gauge their fitness for survival in the new world.

After the population has been decreased, we need to abandon a continent. This would allow a continent to “recharge” it’s resources. I think that a good first continent to abandon would be Europe/Africa/Asia, as the Americas have more wood and other resources., so humans could stay on the continent longer, giving Europe/Asia/Africa time to regrow resources. There are 16.428 million square miles in North and South America, giving a minimum population density of 116 people per square mile. For reference, the population density of a suburb like Worthington Ohio, according to City-data, is 2,540 per square mile. That is 22 times less dense than a suburb! But that is still almost 2 billion people, all of which can still be working. This plan will essentially double the current population of the Americas, and thus doubling work potential, without cramming the continent full of people.

The only problem that might arise is disease. Some may say that having all the people on one big island could mean that one deadly disease could eradicate humanity, but that is going off the assumption that all people will live at 116 people per square mile. There will inevitably be some cities like New York, and not as many people living in the Amazon, American West, or the Yukon. Just to be sure though, all citizens will be vaccinated. There will still be doctors, and there will still be a few hospitals.

Every once and awhile, someone brings up overpopulation in a class, or someone talks about it on the radio, or someone writes an article about it, but no one ever really thinks about just what a big problem it is. According to Livescience, the maximum capacity for humans that intend on eating meat is 10 billion people. That number will be reached before the end of the century. What does it matter that people are getting paid less than another person for the same job just because of gender, what does it matter that someone is tearing down Confederate statues, what does it matter how many people are starving in Africa, when the whole world will be starving in less than 60 years? People like to look at “the big picture” in politics, but they still never zoom out far enough to see that there are bigger problems to deal with, and scarier consequences to go with them? It really puts things in perspective.