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Josh Trebach’s article “Overpopulation: A US Issue” (Jan. 19) lacks credibility. You state that the “environment cannot sustain more people — we cannot even sustain everyone in the world today.” Your claims are unsubstantiated and misleading.
There is more food being produced per capita than at any point in history according to The Economist magazine. In fact, the proportion of starving people in the world has declined from about 35 percent in 1970 to about 18 percent in 1990.
As recently as 2010, the proportion of starving people has dropped to 13.6 percent. These statistics are straight from the Food and Agriculture Organization. You can judge for yourself whether you think we are in danger of “breeding ourselves to our own
demise.”
In addition, “carrying capacity” of the environment cannot be used to defend his claim that population is growing at a threatening rate. Carrying capacity refers to the amount of people that can be sustained in the current environment, for example, with the current technology. The developments in agricultural technology have consistently increased food production at a higher rate than population growth.
A basic understanding of economics would also help set the record straight. When a resource becomes more scarce, it becomes more highly valued. The higher price attached to that resource discourages people from seeking more of it. So in this case, if the means of human survival decline, the birthrate also will decline without any “deliberate precautions.”
Frankly, your conclusion “we need to take deliberate precautions to guarantee sustainable population growth right now,” is a little startling. Not only are you basing this claim on an unsound premises, you stop just short of saying people should not be free to decide how many kids to have. And this comes after you argue against politicians being in Americans’ bedrooms. This is an outrageous suggestion, especially because it is not substantiated with facts.
-Dalton Kissell
senior economics major
A version of this article appeared in the Jan 24 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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It appears that the author of this little letter is basically looking at the number of resources, not how they are partitioned. True, there is more food in the world, but there are also more fat people. True, there are more resources and crops, but they are not being spread out. Look at standard of living. This author does not understand his own argument. I hope the rest is not this narrow.
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The author understand his argument far more than you.
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The Author does not understand his argument.
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I am glad someone replied to that ridiculous article. Thank you.
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Article has flaws and an anthropocentric views.
World IS overpopulated because why many species are going extinct.
Population pressure, endangerment of many species.
Habitat loss and degradation.
Author acts like we're alone on Earth and animals are not important.
EVERYTHING that live on Earth are important.
We share the planet with animals.
World is overpopulated severely.
Overpopulation is more severe in poor countries.
If world's wouldn't be over populated species would NOT be endangered or vanish yearly.
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Dr Norman Borlaug dramatically increased agricultural production with his "green revolution". However, in 1970 we warned that the "population monster" must be addressed, and we must have unity in doing so. The issue has been ignored, even with a 40 year reprieve. Our human "carrying capacity" is being increased at great loss of biodiversity, and animal species. We have been warned of coming food crisis, and of climate change. With numerous "peaks" and depletions, and exponential population growth, the planet is coming to a bottleneck. Nature doesn't care for human rights, religions and taboos on birth control. Nature will eventually shake off the excess load or we address the problem openly, with intelligence.
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