This topic is not often discussed and for good reasons. But awareness is increasing in the classrooms. Even that may not be enough though.
Complications begin at statistics and analyzation. It is not discussed because it is extremely difficult to analyze the world's population, especially since it is impossible for one individual to look at the world's population. Studies must be done in intervals looking at birth and death rates. We also have obviously no experience in populations above 10 billion. Today the estimation is around 7 billion. For anyone person to notice the crowding measurably, they would have to live a long life, living through 3 or 4 generations.
The second problem is there is no incentive for anyone or any organization to study world populations and how each "region" is affect each year. Who will fund a group to study how we can fix the overpopulation "problem"? There would be no benefits other than new information, which would be considered useless to the everyday world. Social conventions and even your own environment may have a strong affect on how much your country's population increases or decreases (like Britain's is currently).
Facts:
- 40-50 million is the maximum biotic potential for a species, but it would be an extremely harsh environment
- 7 billion people, most websites claim somewhere between 6.5-6.6 billion
- In the year 2050, it is estimated that between 8-10 billion people may be inhabiting the planet
* Our population is increasing exponentially (just look at a graph).
Finally, what can you do about overpopulation? Who has the right to control how many offspring a mate can have? Any measures to stop overpopulation would have to be done on a worldwide governmental level, all at nearly the same time. Overpopulation isn't exactly on every nation's top things to do on their "To Do" list. Governments are only concerned with current topics and short-termed issues that produce results. So what's next? Increase public awareness so it can be prevented for the next generations of homo sapiens.
China already is seeing the affects of overpopulation. They halted their "baby manufacturing" when they imposed a One-Child Population Policy. Google reports their population at 1,306,313,812. But they also nearly wiped out all the panda bears in their country when they took their primary source of food - bamboo. Those kinds of environmental impacts can be generated from human overpopulation.
*I just want to know what you think of this issue. What other methods would you impose? Can this proposal work? When will the world be ready? How aware of this issue, are you?