This isn't a serious issue. I know because the serious kids don't discuss it in the WSJ or on the NBC/GE/Westinghouse networks. In fact, the only discussion of it seems to be by those scientists and liberals, not that they've ever done anything for the world:
We've already forgotten the Yangtse River Dolphin, haven't we? But I guarantee you, in any state you're in, some bee, fish or bird has disappeared within only your short lifetime for an absolutely needless reason: development that could have been done better. It's inevitable when at least 8,000 species are going extinct per year.
In "We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction", Chris Hedges writes:
We are experiencing an accelerated obliteration of the planet's life-forms-an estimated 8,760 species die off per year-because, simply put, there are too many people... Humanity, [E.O.] Wilson says, is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic-the era of solitude. As long as the Earth is viewed as the personal property of the human race, a belief embraced by everyone from born-again Christians to Marxists to free-market economists, we are destined to soon inhabit a biological wasteland.
The populations in industrialized nations... view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding. The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.
...[James Lovelock] warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide. The atmosphere on Earth-21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen-is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life's processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system. Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfide "seeds" the cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.
I encourage you to read the Hedges article in full, although by no means do I agree with all of his wording. Needless to say, there are different ways of looking at this. As Brian Gordon points out, Lovelock is a leading thinker in terms of climate change, and his more optimistic fellow climate scientists tend to be proven too optimistic. However, professor Hans Rosling looks at fertility rates instead of unqualified populaiton numbers, which Hedges just termed "expoding". (Rosling's most relevant segment is about 3 minutes into the video.) Indeed, Rosling is an optimist due to very radical change in fertility rate.
Funny that we pat ourselves on the back for changes in rate, improvement (or rather decrease). In my work I've been required to reach certain performance marks. Improvement without reaching the target is next to useless. In this population model though, what if there are only an average of 2 children for a population of <10 billion, with lessened mortality? It's interesting (as in, inherent to the "interesting times" of Chinese curses) that we have next to no target system for world population, and even avoid the subject.</p>
There are so many interlocking crisis we muddle and confuse them. Is it possible to avoid climate catastrophe with a large, and presently growing population. At least in theory. But can we continue to have a world with viable rainforests, wetlands and praries? All of these are close to extinction. Lean, green Oregon's original oak savannahs, which covered the Willamette Valley, are more than 98% extinct. A similar number exists for the beach habitat of Southern California. What is an acceptable level of extinction and loss of diversity? Where are the consequences for the loss of these nice plants? Are we remembering the problems from the buckling of the forests, the invasion of the California chapparal by firestorm-inducing weeds are all caused by the assault on the disadvantaged life-forms?
Hedges also points out that we can't reduce carbon but kill the ocean and expect to get by. Seeing as its the single largest source of the air which all surface life depends on. We're choking the sea and poisoning its lifeblood. This article on the decline of ocean oxygen, from German research, is flat out terrifying. How do you stop the ongoing saturation of the ocean with plastics, agricultural fertilizers, excess carbon dioxide and other pollutants?
What do we do about this great taboo of population? Nancy Pelosi tried a few hundred million for contraception aid. In the drunken philosophy of all growth, everywhere, all the time, that may have seemed more bad than good. But we have to start somewhere concrete. Lovelock warns we have less than 20 years before the gates of hell swing open.