It's interesting but also a bit frightening to realise there are twice as many people alive on Earth today than there were when we first landed on the moon.

In fact there are more people alive today than have ever existed - both lived and died - throughout all of human history. That's the nature of exponential growth and a concept some people can't seem to grasp.

Meanwhile we are depleting non-renewable resources at an unsustainable rate with no thought for the generations yet to follow so we may face a future where we mine old garbage dumps for basics. Those dystopian movies may be an indication of what may be ahead if no action is taken.

Considering the resistance to something like human-induced climate change things will need to get critically worse before meaningful action is taken.

For the Gaia enthusiasts, maybe nature will take care of it and radically thin out the herd with a virulent pandemic or global famine but it's more likely that population control measures will need to be introduced, like China's earlier "one child policy" but first they'll have to get that past the religious zealots.

I wonder what Soylent Green will taste like?

A massive problem facing the world, something that will be even harder to solve than climate change has proven to be, the opposition to any proposal which involves redistribution of resources is going to be vigorously opposed by the "Haves" in no uncertain terms. A stabilisation of the population to "net zero by 2050" is something that would require massive change through government intervention. Under an authoritarian regime such as in China population control through government policy has been both possible and successful. The Chinese "one child policy" although somewhat successful in stabilising population growth it presented other problems, not the least the problems of an ageing population, something all countries with a low birth rate suffer from, including Australia. An increase in wealth and its mass distribution has created a growing middle class in China, and this has contributed as much as anything to population stability.

Under populated countries like Australia with massive resources will need to increase their numbers through migration, while other overpopulated countries stabilise growth through intervention, both economically and physically. We could do worse than lean from the China example.

The ONLY way to change is to start educating the educators ! Too many non-thinkers are being leashed upon non-thinkers !

The most primeval instinct of every single living being is to survive & when its existence is threatened it will retaliate until it or the other is discouraged or even eliminated, depending on the need. Which has more Right to remain alive ? In nature it's the strongest, fittest or most callous ! Nature generally has no 'sorry' ! There are exceptional cases where wild predators shield what is normally their prey but only in very rare instances.
Humans are no different ! Animals will not over-populate Earth, humans have done it already.
Many humans don't give a hoot about millions of humans starving to a premature death, many millions do care & that's when conflict starts.
Would it not make the most sense do prevent so much suffering by preventing so many humans being born ? Birth control should be made available to those who want it & it should be enforced on those who either breed indiscriminately or who want to out-breed another race at the expense of everyone else. If a group of humans can not support themselves then they should have to be able to reduce their birth rate to eliminate human suffering.

Paul,

The other problems with the one child policy is the forced abortions and sterilizations that are a huge human rights problem. The aging issue is huge problem as China will soon have a vast retiree population with a relatively small work force to support them. With China's nearly non existent welfare and retirement system there is a good chance that many elderly will die in poverty.

P.S. China has one of the worst wealth distributions in the world even worse than the USA.

With the rising unemployment and Banks failing, things are not going well there at all.

Look it up.

When people think of growing world population numbers, they immediately think in terms of birth control measures in third world countries. Birth control alone is shown to be counter productive, as demonstrated by the China 'One Child' policy. Over time birth control used as the only form of reduction or stabilisation of numbers will lead to an ageing population, a less proportion of younger productive people in society, and in fact a lowering of living standards for the majority. This human problem facing the world needs to be looked at from another perspective, that of one, resource consumption, two, population distribution, and three, birth control measures.

Those with the most to lose from an equability program to alleviate poverty throughout the world, and raise living standards for the majority, are those high consumers of resources, in other words the rich. Those with the most to gain are the vast majority who are low level consumers in countries with rapidly increasing populations where most are presently living in poverty. The answer is known, but the implementation of the solution on a world scale is the real problem!