human population problems

[Michael.Chamberland]

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The problem of global human overpopulation is a complex one, involving
birth rates, mortality, individual consumption, industrialization,
immigration, growth-based economic systems, and many other factors.  I have
been interested in learning more about the population crisis.  Unfortunately
I have not found any on-line discussion group on this topic.  I have not
been able to locate the magazine _ZPG_ in this state.  Also, I have not
found in our university library any books written after 1980 which deal
with the global aspects of overpopulation, nor what we members of first
world countries can do about the problem (most of the available literature
deals with third word countries and localized population woes).

Perhaps my search strategy has not been thorough enough.  But needless
to say, the population crisis is not a widely addressed issue.  It
seems more like something people would rather not talk about, rather not
think about.

If we are to teach about the population issue we must have hard
facts/numbers/data to prove our point.  Where can we obtain this
information?  The gravity of human overpopulation may be self-evident
to those of us who study other species and their environment, but I
find other people expressing these opinions:

"everyone has the right to have as many children as they want."

"who are you to say how many children I, or anyone else, has?"

"if I have two children I have not contributed to population growth."

"China's one-child per family system is screwed up and results in abortions
 and human-rights violations."

"any attempt to limit population growth becomes a fascist eugenics program."

Yes, these are real responses I have received when discussing the
overpopulation crisis with non-biologists.

Michael Chamberland