I know a lot of people think we have room for a few billion more and in a sense we do - If all you consider is sheer volume of land mass and not available resources, then yes, we have standing room for a few billion more.
But land mass does not equal sustainability, fertile productive land does. Alaska has over 378,242,560 acres or roughly one acre for every American. But try to support that population with the resources available solely in that area and you will experience a lack of resources leading to mass die off to a sustainable level.
All land is not created equal, nor suitable for human habitation, food production, clean water, energy, waste disposal, housing etc, should all be taken into consideration when weighing carrying capacity against population. The amount of land needed to support an individual goes far beyond were he lives.
We should also consider population of a given area, take for instance San Francisco or New York City - both major population centers who's populations are sustained through importation of necessities. If outside imports were suddenly cut off, neither could sustain their populations for very long.
To put it another way, say you have three people in a given area but only sufficient resources to sustain two of them - then the area is essentially overpopulated no matter how vast the land area maybe. They have exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment.
With that being said, overpopulation is not the most significant contributing factor (at least not yet) to a lack of resources, but an inefficient use of the resources available. For example; Despite steadily increasing need for food production, we continue to divert prime agriculture land into other non-sustaining forms of land use.
Another problem is many feel a need to "keep up with the Joneses" and the sense of entitlement, whimpering at the slightest inconvenience, delay, or restriction. Why have a 3,000 square foot home when 1,000 would suffice? Why a Hummer when a small compact car will get you from point A to point B as just as quickly while consuming fewer resources?
They have what I call "the look at me" syndrome, were their entire existence consists of trying to impress everyone else around them, no matter the cost or expenditure of resources. I'm fully convinced that at least 75% or more of the average family's financial assets are dedicated to feeding this syndrome.
As you can see; overpopulation is only one of many contributing factors to resource depletion, poor management of existing resources, greed and a sense of entitlement are also taking their toll.
If the resources required to sustain a given area are consumed faster than they can be renewed, then that area is overpopulated and will collapse without huge amounts of cheap imports from other areas.
The availability of cheap oil has made this possible by keeping shipping cost and retail prices low at a consumer level. As the demand for oil and other resources outstrip production and supply, look for prices to rise and supplies to contract accordingly, leading to shortages and chaos especially in areas suffering from overpopulation.
As individuals there isn't a lot we can do to change this, the only feasible thing for us to do is to get out of major population areas and become as self-reliant as possible, by simplifying our life and reducing our needs, for outside imports.
While it may be impossible to become totally self-reliant, at least for an extended period of time, we as survivalists should see this amount of self-sufficiency as our ultimate goal, and plan accordingly.
What do you think - do we need a few billion more people or have we already passed our limit?
by Jonathan Hunt
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