For perspective, say you have five bears within one square mile. They fit just fine, heck you could double or even triple the number of bears and they’ll still fit just fine. But are any of those bears going to be able to support themselves on their 1/5 square mile? Will they be able to find enough prey, territory, etc to live a normal bear life? No, they are overpopulated. They are going to tear each other’s faces off until there is ~one bear per 10 square miles. That’s a lot of dead bears.

Overpopulation is not about not fitting in the given space. It is about requiring more resources than are available.

You also say “Either Malthus was right and some of us go hungry (as in we don’t need to artificially halt population growth)…” Are you implying here that worldwide famine would be better than implementing family planning programs to slow fertility rates? This seems short sighted at best and cruel at worst.

You also claim that Earth has plenty of resources for 9 billion people. Where did you get this information? I see no sources cited in this article, nor any references to scientific evidence.

How do you suggest we prevent wildfires, make Siberia livable, and disaster-proof Haiti and Taiwan? Would this not mean altering the entire world’s climate systems? Altering entire ecosystems, disrupting the movements of tectonic plates? Do you really think this is realistic? Do YOU want to live in Siberia?

It’s true that top-heavy age demographics are problematic, but that does not mean overpopulation is not also problematic. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

It’s also untrue what you implied about wealth causing nations to slow their roll. This misconception is widely believed, but there isn’t a correlation between GDP and fertility rate. The true correlation lies in women’s rights and access to birth control and family planning services.
(Source, a study by Stanford University): https://overpopulation-project.com/fertility-decline-in-developing-countries-does-not-depend-on-economic-growth-but-follows-contraceptive-use/

You also say “…the world could never be overpopulated.” What do you mean by this? It is simply untrue.

Finally, in your comment you say, “…realistically unless something big changes with food security billions are at risk of starving during this century.” Are you saying we are indeed overpopulated?

Looking forward to your response. Please be more careful not to spread misinformation in the future.

Thanks. You’re closer than you think!

Makes sense to me. I have a cool camping-friendly coffee maker that doesn’t roast the grounds. Guess it’s best not to roast if you’re looking for a healthier option. Less acidic, organic fair-trade coffee tastes the best anyway.

I agree Malthus hasn’t been disproven just yet… I am curious to see how lab-grown meat will change the food game. I’m certainly more a Promethean than a dooms-dayer, but realistically unless something big changes with food security billions are at risk of starving during this century.

Just like everyone else pointing the finger at Malthus you forget that we bought time when we invented artificial fertilizers and that just because what he predicted hasn\’t come true doesn\’t mean it won\’t.

The previous bullet point under “Capacity values highlights this point. Perhaps I should move that bullet to under the excerpt you are referring to.

Capacity values are “the ability to reliably meet demand.”

Using capacity values as a metric, the price of wind & solar spikes due to the unreliability during peak demand and necessary back-ups on stand-by to ensure contingent power. As reliability and capacity values go ↑, the price of renewables will go ↓

Yet text says \”The Institute for Energy Research estimates that wind power is about twice as expensive as conventional gas-fired power, and that solar power is almost three times as expensive (relative to its capacity value).\”

This seems like a direct contradiction … so if the explanation depends on what \’capacity value\’ means, please clearly explain this.