Demographers generally don't get concerned unless the fertility rate goes below 1.5, that is, you don't want population to decline faster than about 1% annually, assuming that you are overpopulated and want to decrease it. Countries would only consider a one child policy if they were so overpopulated that they would be facing collapse just as a result of demographic momentum and wearing the problems of fast decline is a lesser evil. We coped, albeit not well, with more than 2% population growth in 2008, with all the additional need for infrastructure. It is not clear why Loudmouth thinks rates of decline need to be so low. With a stable age structure, the dependency ratio would actually be no worse than in the 1960s. We would have more old people but relatively fewer children, who can also be very expensive. Giving a child a year's education in a public school can cost $10,000 to $12,000 a year or more.

https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/about-us/statistics-and-research/key-statistics-and-reports/financial-information/education-cost.pdf

If there were less age discrimination, a lot of older people could and would go on working for longer, at least part-time.

I agree with Loudmouth about his solutions, compulsory education for children (and I would add enforcement of child labour laws) and education, civil rights, and economic opportunities for women, as well as access to family planning. People also need to organise income support, perhaps on the local level, as in early modern England, for disabled and elderly people who end up without a son to support them.

Unfortunately, people have to be willing to change cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional. The traditional way for people to deal with overpopulation was to start killing each other. There is a map in Prof. E. O. Wilson's article in the latest Discover magazine. It shows archaeologists' estimates of sustained death rates as a result of warfare in different societies. 20% and 30% rates were common, and there was one as high as 46%. The comparable figure for our bloody 20th century was less than 3%, making it look like a happy multicultural picnic by comparison.

*The traditional way for people to deal with overpopulation was to start killing each other.*

That is just part of it, Divergence. Yes people will fight over
resources which become scarcer, as we saw in say Rwanda, when the
machetes came out. But disease and starvation have been part of
natural population regulation of just about all species. The very
role of parents, is to provide food for the offspring.

What we are doing in places like Africa is basically establishing
human feedlots and then we are amazed when they can't feed all the
offspring created, whilst denying them family planning.

We in the West feel smug about all this, as of course we have choices,
so sensibly we choose to have 2-3 kids. Yet we deny these very choices
to women in the third world and then are amazed when they
have sex and keep popping them out like rabbits. Just like we used
to do, before the advent of the pill.

Its all very well to say that women need education, but they also
need the means for family planning, as many simply don't have the
resources. When you live on a dollar a day, survival is the issue,
not fancy western pills etc.

As long as people have sex without contraception, they will keep
popping out far more children then they want or can feed. Nothing
will change. Why not at least give these people a choice?

There is little doubt that the world is over populated. Especially those countries that are suject to famine. There is a dire need to stableize population and we had better start soon.

For those posters on this thread that are not familiar with the story of birthrates in Iran, I suggest you google birthrates or family planning in Iran.

Iran lowered their birthrate from 6.5 per woman to 1.7 per woman by education in family planning and provision of the means. No need for draconian methods. If Iran can do it there is no reason why similar cannot be achieved elsewhere.

That is what needs to be followed and beginning with the high birthrate countries and those subject to famine.

It was not that long ago, 1958-62, that the famine in China killed 45-50 million people from starvation. That type of senerio has to be avoided in future.

A meaningless, banal article. What does sustainability mean? That we should limit ourselves to natural process; does that mean we should resort to hunting and gathering.

I see Ehrlich got a guernsey in the discussion; this guy is despicable and he has never been right about anything; none of his predictions have come true yet he is still quoted as though he has some relevance; actually I guess he has since Holdren, Obama's scientific advisor, is a fellow Malthusian and supporter of Ehrlich.

The whole debate about population, which the 'sustainability' nitwits have appropriated as their justification, is that who should make the decision about what the ideal population is; the greens? That would be a joke, a large number of greens think the planet would be better off without humans all together; so the ideal population would be zero.

One of the greatest humans who ever lived was Norman Borlaug, who oversaw developments in agriculture which were based on defeating natural limitations; in doing so he contradicted every one of Ehrlich's vile prognostications about humanity.

The answer to population [what is the question?] is prosperity. When people are satisfied and materially comfortable with their lives they don't have large families because the exigencies of bare survival have been defeated. However the greens want to take away prosperity through limiting energy. It is madness.

The essence of the sustainability position is imposing limits on human initiative, discovery and achievement. It is a small-minded, wretched concept which has been carried along by the AGW scam.

cohenite,
I am a retired farmer and certainly no greenie, I also am an AGW sceptic.

I do not know of any inovative farming practices that will increase present food production, to feed an ever growing population.

Without some effort being put into birth control it is my view that the risk of many dieing from starvation in future is inevitable. I also question the viability of transporting food to millions of peoplethat are in need because they cannot produce enough to feed themselves. Take Aus, for example, we currently export much food but as our population grows there will be less available for export.

In developing countries, there is far greater risk of people dieing of starvation than there is of them being adversly affected by any climate change.

I see it being far better to reduce birthrates in those countries that are over populated and subject to famine.

Hi Banjo; you say:

"I do not know of any inovative farming practices that will increase present food production, to feed an ever growing population."

Google Norman Borlaug; watch this [this is the 1st part of 3]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgqn56_TKKA&feature=channel_page

Consider GM.

And most impostantly consider what I said about prosperity. If people are well off they will not breed [with the exception of religious interdiction]; the greens are actively oppressing humanity's prosperity; this is plain; so the irony is this notion of sustainability and concern about population will be defeated by green ideology which, by preventing prosperity, will cause unsustainable increases in population