I believe there are three pressing issues regarding population. The first is the overtaxing of land. In order to grow enough food for the world population, we must use synthetic fertilizer, the run-off of which is linked with dead-zones in the oceans and other environment problems. Even with crop rotation, there is a population boom related directly to the invention of synthetic fertilizer so we could expect if we waned off it, this boom would recede. Even if we decided to ignore the environmental repercussions, the fertilizer is largely oil based which leads us to the next problem.
Peak Oil is becoming an issue, as oil companies are becoming more and more desperate to find new sources of oil and are presenting their own environmental threat in the process. No matter what happens, it is inevitable that oil will become too scarce to use, and even if we managed to change over to a new energy source we'd also have to invent new tires, new fertilizers, new plastics, etc... in order to keep society running. Whether or not you wish to argue global warming (keep in mind you're an idiot if you do) peak oil cannot be argued. Even if we managed to find a source of oil that could last us long enough to change over to a new fuel source, we need to shrink the population anyways in order to avoid the third problem.
We do not have enough fresh drinking water for everyone. Currently 2 billion people rely on the fast-melting glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. When this source is no longer available, such massive populations will be displaced, fluctuations from the displacement will rock virtually every other society on earth. Whether or not we can change over to a new fuel source and figure out some way to grow enough food for everyone without synthetic fertilizer, it seems extreme competition for fresh water will become inevitable.
The carrying capacity of our species was artificially inflated several times. I call these inflations artificial because they are based on resources which provide temporary yet unsustainable abundance. Our farming methods deplete the capacity of the soil and our industrial society sits atop a finite resource.
So the question is what actions can we take which are ethical? Sterilization agents have been tried in the past but always seem to be motivated by a political or racial agenda, so if anyone advocates the use of sterilization I say let's start with the jews. (Not trying to be a dick, I'm just making a point). We could simply allow nature to take its course as human carrying capacity will reach equilibrium again after a few billion die off and that seems as ethical as sneaking sterilization chemicals into the water and other shit that has been put up for legislation in the past.
Another solution is education because there's a direct link between being educated and having less children, but the simple biological fact is our carrying capacity is artificially inflated and assuming we can educate the whole world into dropping the population by a 3rd in one generation is a bit overly idealistic in my opinion. So I'm not sure about that idea.
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