7 billion and counting

[lucy]

"To put it simply, where will all the additional people go if the human population continues to grow?"

To the cities, as they do now.

What can we do to avoid this?

Get rich and wealthy. So far that's been the best measure to cut down on birth rates. How we can achieve that without exploiting the planet further is yet another question.

[thir]

To the cities, as they do now.

yes, but there must be a limit to how big they can get. They are vulnerable now, just think of a temporary black out.

Get rich and wealthy. So far that's been the best measure to cut down on birth rates. How we can achieve that without exploiting the planet further is yet another question.

We can't, I think. The anwer must be something like the poor half cut down on babies (which can only be done if they have better chances of survival) and the rich cut down on pollution - which they won't.

Hm!

[leo9]

Get rich and wealthy. So far that's been the best measure to cut down on birth rates. How we can achieve that without exploiting the planet further is yet another question.

It would have been a good solution fifty years ago, but we are way past that. I seem to recall someone calculating that bringing the whole of the world's population up to our standard of living would need another two and a half Earths' resources. (And right here, not at the end of some hypothetical interplanetary freight line, before anyone brings in why we should have stuck with the space program.)

Right now, just those of us who are living that way are enough to wreck the ecology.

Back when I started reading science fiction, writers were imagining that in the 21st Century we'd all be on strict rationing because of overpopulation. They forgot to ask, who bells the cat? Who imposes rationing on the rich and powerful to benefit the poor and weak? Barring an invasion from space, not going to happen.