... to think 7 billion people is enough.

[GentlemanGin]

Global population will reach 7 billion this year,

In 1950 it was about 2.3 billion
In 1800 was just 1 billion.

UN projection is 10.1 billion in 2100

Where do we stop ? Or won't we and just descend into conflict as resources disappear ?

Personally I think this is the biggest problem facing humankind yet it's rarely discussed in politics.

so what's your plan batman?

How are they going to get people to stop reproducing then?

Wars and famine should reduce the population in years to come when it gets too bad

lawnimp, I don't have a plan I'm just asking your opinion. Do you have one ?

Sounds like you may want to keep your fingers crossed for yellowstone then.

Exactly StrandedBear - I don't worry too much as I know inevitably the human population will be wiped out at some point anyway. And really, what on earth can you expect anyone to do about it now?

You're probably right about the rising population. I know China have a one child policy but let's face it, having seen some of the problems that has caused I doubt it will be brought into force here.

I often wonder about that, too, when you hear experts on the radio saying that we need to produce more and more food to feed all these extra billions of people, I think, surely we should concentrate on population control? I don't mean going round forcibly sterilising people, but start with education about family planning, particularly in the third world.

It'll never reach 10 billion. As another has said, war & famine will wipe a few billion out before then.

nature has a way of restoring 'balance' , however unpalatable that seems

We should reintroduce dinosaurs.

Damn, I'm currently constructing dc2. Should I stop now before it's too late? I'd hate it to be to 7,000,000,001...

mumblechum1. Yes I agree wholeheartedly. Virtually all (97%) of the world's 2.3 billion projected increase will be in the underdeveloped regions, with nearly half (49%) in Africa. There is an issue of birth control and education.

Also, on the famine / war solutions, I don't really agree. We've had plenty of wars and famines and natural disasters, none of which have halted the increases.

I like the dinosaur option.

I know famine is not nice for anyone and think of those poor children but its population control.

I am a bit at this, put yourself (and your DCs) in the people of Kenya's shoes and then famine as population control doesn't seem so fair. Especially with the obesity epidemic in the developed world.

Surely we are all going to be wearing silver jumpsuits and colonising mars in the next few decades anyway. Problem solved :o

Agree GentlemanGin, unless you're talking meteor strike type natural disaster, and then we will all go the way of the dinosaurs.

David Attenborough had an interesting programm on this a couple of years back. Any country or region that improves women's general education levels sees the birth rate/family sizes drop rapidly, typically to replacement level or below. So I think that's an obvious thing to target.

Yes I agree wholeheartedly. Virtually all (97%) of the world's 2.3 billion projected increase will be in the underdeveloped regions, with nearly half (49%) in Africa. There is an issue of birth control and education.

In terms of resources you get ten Africans on every westerner so birth control is not really the answer as we, the worst "wasters", already have access to this. The best thing would be to limit the resources each person can use.

I was thinking other day it will probably sort itself out (in the west at least) through people's finances.

As population rises, food + housing gets more + more expensive, people simply won't be able to have children as much.

HidingInTheUndergrowth . On an aside, I heard some really interesting figures about going to Mars. Something like 80 / 90% of the technical challenge and cost is not to get people there, it's to get them back.

Interesting idea. You can go to Mars, but you're never coming back. And hey, throw a silver jump suit in for free and I might just consider it.

I know it's horrible SeymoreButts, but it is true. I think it every time I see that ad that says 8 million children die unnecessarily every year.. I think, well if they didn't, the world would be chaos.

What is wrong is that the 8 million that die are confined to the poorest countries of the world because humankind has made it so that the resources are so unequally distributed that it is usually unlikely that a child will die of "natural causes" in the developed world while very likely that they may in the developing.

I don't wish that misery on anyone, and it's not as if I want to step into the breach and have my child die to sort the population of the world out, or not have a brother or sister for my son because of concerns about overpopulation.

It's all very complicated, that much I do know.. and somehow, yes, nature does rebalance. Ireland was frighteningly overpopulated before the Great Famine (can't recall figures, but think in the region of 20 -25% of the whole population went) and well, it sorted that. Does that mean that it wasn't horrendously, awfully, soul-destroyingly miserable for every man woman and child affected by it? No. Also, it may not be war or famine, it may be a virus like the Avian flu etc that kills off us in the West.

To point out the obvious, I think people might not be talking so calmly about nature rebalancing if they were watching their own child slowly starving to death. As it happens, the most effective way of cutting the birth rate is female education (see here).

Also what HumanBehaviour said in terms of overconsumption by Europeans, Americans etc.