General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: As a person, my decisions regarding reproduction are mine. [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Really, it's not. it's resource use. Rightnow, 360 million Unitedstatsians have roughly equal environmental impact to the combined populations of India and China, a total of 2.5 BILLION people. This is because we consume way, way more.
Similarly, local overpopulation can cause local environmental destruction - see Niger - but not irreversably so. However, overconsumption - as per most "western" nations - can lead to irreversible harm, even in states that are not "overpopulated" - Japan for instance is losing population steadily, but its consumption of petroleum, metals, and timber is still wildly excessive and leads to more lasting harm than the needs of just a dense population would cause.
Even that damage caused by overpopulation is usually highly localized, rather than global. Niger's population might have collapsed the ecology of the Sahel in that nation, but that's it - they're not causing Greenland to turn into a freshwater lake in the upper Atlantic.
The problem is consumption levels. One Unitedstatsian consumes enough food and resources to equal, I dunno, fifty-seven Malians. The planet can safely support a VERY large number of humans - upward estimate of fourteen billion - but that's if those people are engaging in minimal consumption.
If it's any consolation to you, the petroleum industry will collapse way before the planet does, leading to both a sharp knock-down of both consumption and population. ...Actually i guess that's probably not very consoling at all, especially if you're young enough to be an inheritor of the wasteland like I am... But, it's a notion you get used to, I guess.