“Overpopulation” or not? Who do we believe?

It seems as though the population debate (whether it is an issue or not, and if so, how to tackle it), seems to have more than two sides to the argument. It has at least four broad categories, at least two stemming from an argument that it is not an issue and at least two from the view that it is:


Two sides that defend current population numbers:

  • Corporations and other power holders that wish to continue their current economic policies, and who see technology solving all the associated problems thus allowing populations to grow.

  • Progressive people who believe that there are enough resources to sustain even a slightly larger population than we currently have, but that will cause problems later. This group believes that there are numerous political issues (largely caused by those in the group above!) that could be tackled either as well as tackling population growth issues, or instead of directing effort towards population growth issues.

Two sides who feel that over-population issues are affecting us now and that something must be done now:
  • Environmental lists and other concerned citizens and activists who have a genuine altruistic nature and concerns for people and the environment. Some (not all) of those in this camp follow the Malthusian principles that “numbers and simple analysis could yield an improved understanding of contemporary and future population problems, and that steady growth of populations would produce great and grave problems” .

  • People who can use this argument for racial purposes—to discriminate against immigrants, to in essence promote eugenics, , social Darwinism and so on. Some of these people may also originally have genuine concerns for the environment and have formed extreme ideas about solutions.


Most people appear to fall into the first categories of each side of the argument mentioned above, due to political influences. However, it is most likely somewhere in between the Progressive and Environmentalist view points above. Of course, the risk of categorizing people means that other perspectives are perhaps less emphasized or missed out. Indeed, there are also those who for example will have a mix of perspectives, including a mix of progressive and environmental ones where perhaps they feel their either is or isn’t a problem now, but that the way to deal with it is largely to tackle root economic and social conditions that determine how our resources are used and shared among people.