Although everything is interconnected and interdependent, my deepest concerns aren’t limited to global warming, or climate change. They have to do with 1) the ability of the earth to sustain such a barrage of destruction for profit and 2) what unregulated consumption and production have done and continues to do to the human spirit.

I agree that overfishing the oceans, clear-cutting forests, poisoning rivers, lakes, and streams, decimating our precious wildlands, stripping our National Forsts, and wiping out entire species all for the almighty dollar is monolithic crime committed by wealthy, less-populated nations.

I agree that the poorer countries with the highest birthrates are hardly responsible for this blanket destruction. The nations with the most sophisticated technologies are responsible, yes, yes, yes. In this, overpopulation cannot be blamed.

Your point is precise and well-taken.

When I write about overpopulation, I come from a more personal, pragmatic, non-scientific, non-political angle.

I’m talking about the sense of being packed into small places with massive numbers of complete strangers that I will see for a second, or at most an hour or two, and never see again, let alone get to know.

I’m talking about being jammed in traffic, elevators, stores, on sidewalks, and other public places where human beings, instead of choosing to be in a community of familiar faces are herded like cattle to and from destinations carved out by the directives Consume, Work, Obey.

I’m talking about road rage, depression, ADD, addictions, homocide, suicide, infantacide (-cide = “poison”), and the general decimation of the human spirit.

I’m talking about waiting three months to see some doctor who doesnt’ know your name and spending fifteen minutes in that doctor’s office as a number on a medical claim.

I’m talking about a feeding frenzy of potential renters swooping down on a handful of available rentals in any given city and a growing number of homeless people.

I’m talking about everything made of or touched by petroleum as a means to efficiently dehumanize every human being on this earth. And the more efficient a system, the fewer slaves needed to work; conversely the less efficient a system, the more slaves needed to work.

I’m talking about the unprecedented mal-distribution of wealth generated by petroleum that causes overpopulation in the first place.

I’m talking about a growing sense of distrust, distaste, dislike, and even hatred of my fellow human beings who are as clueless as I am about how to disengage from this torment of overcrowded poverty of mind, body and spirit. Where is the kindness? Where is the empathy? Where is the ability to put others before self?

There are so many people on this planet that the quality of life on this planet is deteriorating at an alarming rate. The levels of denial, greed, callousness, rage and self-righteousnes are astonishing and crushing.

The sheer number of people on this planet grasping for wealth or merely grasping for survival is beyond my ability to comprehend. And the wealthy have no interest whatsoever in finding solutions to create a more just distrubution of that wealth. We live, in other words, in a claustrophobic sandbox dominated by a handful of childish bullies.

But even with the possibility that it could only only support between 13 and 15 billion this is still above the 9-11 billion people that World population is projected to level off at.

What really worries me is that when a population levels off in terms of growth it is usually because it has become high development and high consumption (just look at western Europe as well as the USA without immigration).

The scary thing is just how high development/consumption will we be if population growth stagnates worldwide.

Global Warming is an important subject that needs to be handled for a better future for both the human race and ecologies worldwide.

However, I’ll argue lowering population (in either a “hands off” or “hands on” fashion for governments) is not likely to help deal with this issue.

First of all, there is not a correlation between the amount of greenhouse gases and people in a nation. (possible response: What? I thought people contribute to global warming? More people more warming, right?) If having more people was key to increasing global warming gases than China and India would not have produced less greenhouse gases than the USA throughout the 20th century. Each of them had a much greater population than the US and polluted less. Now when China is finally overtaking the USA in terms of emissions. Ask why is it doing so? There has not been a sudden baby boom to ramp up population (the 1 child policy has actually been effective, despite corruption and loopholes, in the overall goal of lowering China’s birthrate.) China’s emissions rise has occurred alongside a birthrate drop because China is industrializing. China is building 1 new coal power plant per week because new factories are being built and a Chinese consumer class is rising that purchases electronic devices (as well as SUVs that have finally stopped selling in the USA).

It is even possible to have a population shrinkage and an increase in global warming gases-look at Europe with shrinking population in some nations, they haven’t stopped polluting. Many are still better than the USA on an emissions per person basis but their pollution went up despite a shortage of babies in some nations.

If you want to handle global warming I would encourage handling the direct sources of emissions. These (especially if you are talking about the carbon that has to be brought up from underground and then put in the air) are the devices we use.

This is why highly developed nations are generally much worse polluters than less developed nations-the latter have less in the way of automobiles or energy requiring devices.

To solve Global Warming (which is going to be with us for many years due to the damage already done) deal with the devices we like to have that add more greenhouse gases to the air. Either make them effectively carbon neutral or see if you can live without them.

The number of devices rather than humans is the real problem. You can actually lower the number of humans on the planet and see the number of devices they use rise through greater numbers per person/household. There once was a time when the average US household didn’t have 2 or more cars, more than 1 TV and so on.

The greatest irony of all is that the nations where the birthrate is highest are also tend to be those where the emissions per person rate is low. Global Warming is mostly caused by us in the developed world who already have low birthrates and high levels of device use.

There is absolutely no guarantee that lowering population levels will reduce global warming. With the possibility that some business may try to further mechanize (using devices run on energy from carbon emitting sources) to produce more with fewer workers there is even the theoretical possibility that the emissions problem will become worse.

I would argue that saying the number humans is the problem may sometimes occur from having a bit to much Malthus in one’s intellectual diet-and don’t forget that history has frequently proven wrong those who come up with ideas based on his theories.