A quick question: What's the biggest environmental problem facing humanity today. Is it global warming? One would certainly think so judging from the actions of various governments, which are trying to reduce those manmade greenhouse gas emissions we hear so much about. Is it dwindling energy resources, running up against the limits of agricultural technology in feeding the earth's population, or perhaps diminished supplies of fresh water, without which life cannot be sustained? All of the above are exacerbated by the continued growth in the number of people living on this planet. Overpopulation is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the attic. It is the most disastrous environmental threat we face, yet one whispered about rather carefully since there are no apparent solutions to it that are politically viable.
Hopes for a happy outcome rest on projections that the world's population growth will stabilize at zero by 2030 or so. As we know, extrapolation of current trends into the future is often fanciful because unanticipated influences shatter expectations. Stock and housing prices, as we have so painfully been reminded, don't move predictably upward, there are limits to everything, and we don't know if the sustainable population of humans has already been exceeded. The Earth's population first reached a billion shortly after 1800, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in late 1986, and 6 billion before we headed into the 21st century. In my lifetime, human population more than doubled. That, of course, can't happen again, but whether the current situation is viable is an open question.
