Actually it does more than makes societies see babies as the enemy of sex. It makes babies the enemy of society. If you read articles about families that have 6 or more children, you regularly see comments on how it is disgusting, how the children will be on welfare since no-one can afford them, how this family is destroying the earth, how “dumb people breed like rabbits but smart people have at most one child since the dumb will overtake the smart” (anyone whose heard WWII German sterilization propaganda should get chills), and how China’s one child policy is “enlightening”. You’ll rarely hear a peep of praise.

I don’t think the population control crowd is at all worried about having too many boys. If there are too many boys, there will be fewer children, so 1930s policies like forced sterilizations and one child policies can be deferred or even relaxed once the critical point of no return ratio is reached.

Personally, I don’t expect things to turn around until the consequences are fully felt or at least until the situation hits rock bottom. In the mean time, I’m reminded of stories of the early Roman Empire. It was customary to abandon unwanted children in the river. Christians would regularly save this children and raise them as their own. Eventually, the number of children saved because a force on it’s own. The children are the future.

http://badcatholicblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/overpopulationists-are-stupider.html

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This is typical of bigoted science-twits like Attenborough, the subtext of his remarks being (hat tip to Mark Shea): Just enough of us; way too many of you.

One problem with overpopulation alarmists is that they focus on one (current) number and predict a worldwide doom.  The *current* world population is almost 7 billion, however, the birth rates of many countries is hovering below replacement rate (<2).  Another thing to consider is the increasing median age of countries.  It doesn’t take much effort to see that declining birth rates and aging populations do not add up to overpopulation. 

I don’t know when China’s one-child policy began, but China’s overall median age is about 35, with median female age being a little older.  Most of the women who are left are past or toward the end of their child bearing years and the men are aging, too.  Pretty soon, unless they can find women who are willing to have (more than 2) children and raise their birth rate from just above 1 to something a lot higher, the population of China alone will implode.

The other problems that are really frightening are the alarmists’ “concern” for the overpopulated world at the expense of the very real people who are living in it as well as their complete disregard for the God given right of people to bear and raise their children as they see fit.  Most frightening is the lack of concern for the state of mind and soul of people who live in a world so hostile to the natural state of motherhood and to children.

My dire prediction based on man’s nature and not on numbers: once the worldwide population does begin to fall, the alarmists will claim they were right all along and try to push their depopulation agenda further.  My reason for hope: God is still God. 

Mark Steyn has an excellent book, “America Alone,” on the “population crisis.”  http://www.steynstore.com/product28.html

Many people think overpopulation is a problem, but here is an article on the problems that can occur due to population decline: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/where_have_all_the_children_go.html

Here is a map of median age by country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Median_age.png

The overpopulation alarmists fail to mention anything about the reversed pyramid which American Society has become.  I find it ironic they spout the importance of overpopulation education but fail to see that America’s reverse population pyramid is the reason we can’t keep our promise of support to our elderly in the form of medicare and Social Security.

I am waiting for them to change their solution focus from “shame on you for having more than two children” to “shame on you for not committing suicide yet!”

Wait’ll all the overpopulation alarmists, now in their 30s and 40-50s are in their 80s and 90s, and they have no safety net programs like SS, Medicare/Medicaid because there weren’t enough people paying into the payroll taxes used to fund these programs. How did that happen? Legislative cuts? Well, only after Congress decided one day in the future that so long as there weren’t enough people paying into it, they pulled the safety net out. But wait, how did it ever get to this stage? Admittedly I glossed over some of the usual more technical stages and reasons for this debacle, but for starters, I’m going to use our current figure of 50M aborted already would-be Americans sound for a solid guess.
  “Nurse, nurse, nurse, wouldya please get me a ginger ale with crushed ice, thankye dearie.”
  “Thanking me for what!, the doc, the administrative staff and your heirs said you’ve already drank up all your alloted for ginger-ale ... all you get is the tap water out of the fountain down the hall.”
  “But it’s rancid,”
  “Tough, you’re the generation that didn’t want kids, so now I’m overworked and understaffed and you’re complaining?”
  And so it goes in “Future Travails of Aging Babyboomers,” sponsored by the Club of Rome, Planned Parenthood and the Al Gore Hysterics Society.

Idiots who love the “enlightenment” of one-child policy and the “wisdom” of population reduction are left scratching their heads at why China and South Korea are scrambling madly to reverse the damage of their contraceptive and abortive policies and cultures.  It is fascinating to read about how in South Korea (the nation with one of the highest abortion and lowest birth rates)government officials have been ordered home to make an effort to procreate and power companies have been shutting off power to help the magic happen.  They are desperate, and here we have Sir Know-a-lot saying that the rest of the world should follow suit in that lunacy.  Sir David needs a reality check- it’s been done before, and it’s been a catastrophe for those societies in which it has been tried.

Father Pavone’s “good overview” simply boils down to “the alarmists were wrong before, so they’ll always be wrong.” I’ll ignore the irony of a man of the cloth adopting this approach (how many times has Jesus’ imminent return been predicted? Since those predictions have all been wrong, is He never coming back?) and simply point out that the world’s resources are finite, and at some point they will be woefully insufficient to support us. I don’t know what the critical population level is—perhaps we’ve already reached it,  perhaps it’s a long ways away—but I applaud those who are at least pondering the issue, instead of hiding their heads in the sand and pretending that we can breed like bunnies without detrimental consequences.

Oh, and the Guttmacher Institute isn’t part of Planned Parenthood; although it was founded as PP’s research division, it’s been an independent entity for decades.

Great article. Interesting research from the CMAJ recently on the ‘excess’ of young men in China an India - a good summary can be found over at Science Daily (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110314132244.htm)

Gee another diatribe about sex. I’m shocked! Funny that the world’s most religious country, the US, has one of the highest out of wedlock birthrates while most civilized countries have found that, yes, you can have sex for FUN. No one is anti children. The statement about sexually active women’s chances of having a kid ignore the fact that most people WANT kids. But they don’t want them ALL THE TIME. Protestants have discovered you can have sex, with contraception, and it doesn’t lead to the collapse of civilization. Enough with the neuroticism already. Your credibility is weak enough on the issue. You’re just anti-sex

Demographic Winter

Rich - you say “how many times has Jesus’ imminent return been predicted” but really has the Catholic Church ever engaged in such predictions?

Rich.  “The Christ-is-returning Brigade” have never been part of the Catholic Church or He Teachings.  Why??? Because He Himself said: No one knows the day or the time.  He is in Charge and His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. So do not confuse the current topic on this Post with your Catholic bashing campaign.

Madame, you are no authority on the perils overpopulation. If I needed advice on speed diaper changing and vast resource over consumption, I might turn to you. You probably will never have time in your life to study the environmental problems we face, but perhaps viewing ‘The Road Warrior’ once or twice would put you on the right track.

Nicholas, you just criticised someone for “vast resource over consumption” and suggested that she “probably will never have time in [her] life to study the environmental problems we face” but to support these (frankly ridiculous) claims you produce no evidence at all. You refer the readers of this thread to ... no evidence at all. And then you suggest viewing a film would supply the evidence that you cannot?

Jen, a great post as always.  It intrigues me that the proposed solution to overpopulation is limiting or destroying human life.  The closer I get to becoming Catholic, the more ridiculous this seems to me.  Surely we should first exhaust all technological ways of producing more food on the same amount of land.  Surely we should mandate a vegetarian diet (for example) before mandating contraception.  Surely we should first investigate the dozens of Earth-like planets that have been found. Surely we should first tighten our belts as a civilization and consume less. 
If we really believe human beings are the most valuable creatures on Earth, why do we as a society seriously consider axing procreation before axing overconsumption?

“Madame, you are no authority on the perils overpopulation. If I needed advice on speed diaper changing and vast resource over consumption, I might turn to you” whoa first of all, that was completely uncalled for. Second, since you think the author can only advice on diaper changing then you shouldn’t have clicked on the article unless the title was “diaper changing” and you where looking for info on diaper changing. Your implication that because she changes diapers she can’t possibly know anything abouth anything else is insulting. Furthermore you failed to provide an intelligent answer to what was discussed in the article and decided to be petulant instead. Everithing said in the article is perfectly sound, unlike your answer to it.

Well Jen, I will say, I understand you are pointing out the DEMOGRAPHIC problems of the baby bust in developed nations after the baby boom, but nowhere are you citing anything about the ECOLOGICAL data.  I have to tell you that as a Christian woman who loves children, I would want nothing more than to have many more babies of my own…I am very sad about the current state of affairs…but I know that there are very bright, hard-working folks who keep presenting tough scientific data about the demise of our ecosystems.  Are they all wrong?  Does none of their combined training and expertise matter?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3973

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6108414.stm

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html

Our population explosion is lock-step in tune with our fossil fuel use,(see the last link) and unless you are of the opinion that we are going to find another Earth to colonize any time soon, you must admit that these resources are finite. 

Therefore, if the ecological data is true…then the demographic crunch is just (I don’t mean “just” in a callous way, as I know it will be very tough for many) a symptom of the fact that we expanded to much to quickly, without regard to sustainability. 

I agree that we need to drive home the point that sex is biologically designed for babies and bonding, but I cannot see how it is not part of being a faithful Christian to try to understand how our personal decisions affect humans all throughout the world today and tomorrow.  Christians must love and follow truth; even if the truth is hard to accept. 

I do not accept that safe, effective birth control coupled with female education(not abortion)cannot be part of a loving way for people to limit their growth out of respect for each other and for the Earth.
Birth control can be used in a loving way.  IMO the Catholic church should understand that it is a tool, it can be used for good or for evil, but it is morally neutral.

Yes of course, babies are not the enemies of society, the baby did nothing to come here.  That doesn’t mean we DO NOT have a population problem.  Anyone who doesn’t think 200 million new Indians added this last decade alone in 1 country isn’t a problem should try to feed, educate, and house each and every one of them.  Better yet, invite those 200 million to live in your neighborhood.

Yes, non-Hispanic White population growth in USA is nearly flat.  But USA is just a small part of the earth, please think GLOBALLY.

So obviously, population especially in developing nations is out of control.  Most of those nations do not adhere to Christianity either, so using Christian arguments falls flat on deaf ears.  What we need is drastic EFFECTIVE action, even one child policies from China.  Sex is not the issue, you can command people not to have it, you can threaten them with damnation, you can scare them with HIV statistics and stories, but in the end they still do it.  The only policies that have been effective are tube tying and one-child policy. 

A child not conceived is not a soul lost, it is a one less soul regretfully neglected.

correction:

“A child not conceived is not a soul lost, it is a one less soul we do not have to regretfully neglect.”

I was talking to my daughter today about behavior modification. It’s human flesh to want to get rid of the consequence but not the cause.

great article.

BTW, Australia is a hugely under populated country. Only 20 million people in a country almost the size of the USA.. while here we have over 220 million people…’

yeah, the world is UNDER populated!!!

Hi Tereza, that’s certainly an idea worthy of a progressive thinker, to suggest that since Australia is less populated than the USA it needs MORE people! What a bright bulb you are! BTW, do you know ANYTHING about Australia? Maybe you’ve heard that it’s largely a DESERT, and that some really bad environmental problems are occurring there now? I believe that’s also where they filmed ‘The Road Warrior’ with that good Catholic boy Mel Gibson.  World ecosystems have horribly degraded by the abusive practices of human beings. There are FAR TOO MANY people now to live as we have been. Big changes are coming. Anyone who takes even one semester of biology learns about the carrying capacity of the environment. That’s why it’s impossible to take this article as serious, well reasoned science. You are preaching ideology and religion, not science.

In order to answer the theoretical problem of ‘how many people can the world support?’ you first have to answer the question ‘how much of earth’s resources does a person require?’

This is the question being studiously avoided, because the world already has far more radical over-consumers - let’s call them Al Gores - than it can support. These are people who regularly jet around the world, might have 15,000 sq ft of living space they effectively share with no one, and who can’t imagine that their lives, as empty as they are, are none the less what everyone everywhere aspires to. I seriously doubt the world could sustainably support even a few hundred thousand people like that.

By just talking numbers, as if a village farmer in 90% of the world doesn’t consume less than 1/1000th as much as an Al Gore - and very possibly has a life more full of love and satisfaction than Al’s - we can duck the whole issue of who is consuming what and why, and more specifically avoid answering why our consumption habits are more valuable and important than the lives of people yet to be born.

@Nicholas M. McGill: “Anyone who takes even one semester of biology learns about the carrying capacity of the environment.” And that’s exactly the problem; ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’. Carrying capacity, as normally discussed and taught, is a feature of a model that assumes fixed resources—something that cannot be applied even remotely to a technologically advancing society. At the hunter-gatherer level, Earth could support perhaps a few tens of millions; at the level of preindustrial agricultural societies, a few hundred million; at the level of early industrial society, a few billion; at the modern level, perhaps ten to twenty billion*; once biotechnology has been given a few centuries to work on crops, who can say?

The idea that there is a finite level of resources is kind of a misunderstanding, since the “real” (fundamental) resources are not the things we work with. Ultimately, with good enough technology, all resources can be reduced to energy and elements—the earth can support more people now than in (say) 1000 BC because our agriculture is better at making use of the nutrients in existence - we haven’t poofed new nutrients out of (The biggest innovation was the Haber process, which allowed agriculture to really make use of the nitrogen in the air for the first time.)

There are real sustainability issues, but they are mostly the result of a fossil-fuel economy (and most that are not are due to our farming practices). A more sensible economy (which would require no new technology) could support *more* people with *far less* environmental damage.

Thank you for this , Jennifer!

Thanks Apfel, your points are well taken. But will we ever learn to live better on this Earth? I have been an organic farmer for more than 15 years, but even with much greater demand for these products and much greater awareness of why they are better, you can look around and see that our people and our lands are in far worse condition then they were.  I think the weak points of your argument are that 1) progress in these regards can be infinite, 2) people will voluntarily live in better harmony with nature, 3) that corporate industrial capital (and the governments that serve it) will allow meaningful change. And what of the other species we are wiping off the earth in order to increase our resource base? Aquifers are being depleted, forests are gone, most large mammals (esp. predators) are going extinct, climate is changing rapidly, and people are still having lots of babies, even in the most marginal of places. I’ve seen this from Madagascar to Mississippi. And the real problem is that we are turning the earth into a degraded cesspool, deeper and dirtier with each new human birth, so what kind of world are we bringing these babies into? And I’m not blaming the babies!

Nicholas M. mcGill - have you traveled extensively?

Yes, Magda, I formerly traveled in remote places a great deal. I study plants, and my partner was a geologist.

Nicholas,
Do you think I should limit the size of my family to accommodate your travel energy needs?
This is a serious question.

Haha, Magda, I haven’t traveled in some time, as I retired 7 years ago, but I do ride my bike daily. Mostly I’m vegetarian as well. Also, I never had children, though I’m a devoted Uncle. I seriously doubt that you are anyone in your family has a smaller energy budget than myself. My journeys are back and forth in the garden, from season to season.  I would suggest that you do limit the size of your family, for their sake, and the sake of other species.  Do you recognize the threat of overpopulation in other species, say urban deer or feral cats? Is it just that humans are ‘different’ somehow? Have you ever been to a third world country (or a large US urban center) and seen human overpopulation first hand? Haiti is one example that you may have seen in the media recently, there are many others. I would suggest that you seriously examine the ecological state of the planet before having a large family.

If you studied the of Haiti you would know that babies are not the reason for the deplorable state of that country - the greed of a few and ignorance are the culprits.
There are whole families without bicycles who would never approach your lifetime energy consumption.  These families are told they don’t merit children because of their educational and financial status.  The bigotry and arrogance of a few people who boast of control of huge acreage while denying the right of family love to the poor, insulting what they value and insinuating they have no right to life is telling.
It is obvious that humans are different than other species.  And it is interesting that the most overpopulated cities in the United States are considered cultural and intellectual centers by their citizens.  Is that because of the humans there - or the rats?  Seriously, reflect on this.

Nicholas - that should have been history of Haiti.

This overpopulation myth is really ridiculous.  It’s just another way for (1) someone to get rich by deceiving people and (2) a way of selective extermination of different races.  Am I the only one that noticed that the only countries with “overpopulation” are non-white, with fast growing economies?  We discussed this in one of my graduate school classes and basically through careful research we debunked this myth.  We have discovered ways of producing more food with less land.  We have also created materials and portable devices that allow us to live comfortably in almost any type of environment (desert included). 

Even without these inventions God is still in country and our time on earth has ALWAYS been temporary.  Only he decides when it’s over and we have no way of knowing the time.

capitalcee
Agreed

Hello, all…great article, Jen.  Food for thought:  People, how do we know resources are finite?  Seriously, stop and think about that really hard for a minute.  Can anyone tell me what new biology is capable of producing a resource that we may, in the future, need?  If dinosaur remains and ancient plant life can become fossil fuels, who is to say that salt water from the oceans can’t combine with something chemical or natural to create something else???  If we’ve been paying attention, we have to acknowledge that our God is an awesome God who can do ANYTHING, and can give us IDEAS of how to make our lives better.  How to feed populations who are starving…how to create something necessary to filter out carbon monoxide, etc.  And on a humorous note, what happened to all the trees that celebrities and others are out planting?  I think we’ve saved a few rainforest trees over the past 2 decades…trees that could be used to encourage wildlife, produce more oxygen, even (gasp!) be chopped down for building houses.  The point it, no one knows what resources we’ll need in the future, and what we’ll have to live with.  If the polar ice caps do completely melt (doubtful, in our lifetime)then suddenly we have a lot more water to desalinate.  Finite Resources equals oxymoron.

Magda, you are certainly right that unregulated corporate greed by the
few is an overarching factor in people’s increasing poverty. I would
be you with for a redistribution of land to the people. You are very
mistaken about population centers and culture as you will see by
noticing the ghetto’s and industrial sprawl that surround the rich
urban core. Have you ever been in a large favela or equivalent shanty
town?  And nearly endless sprawl beyond that with ecologically
degraded agricultural land. It’s not all Manhattan out there! The
human ecological footprint is enormous and unsustainable, with
consequences beginning to be felt right now. People seem to get so
angry about this subject, but even if you believe that humans are of
much greater importance than all other species combined, I would think
you would open up to the possibility that we are for some hard times
in terms of ecology and economy. Lowering the population would be
better for the children that were here as well, who need lots of
resources and love. And why be so neglectful of God’s other creatures
anyway that you will erase their very existence in the universe simply
for your convenience?

Nicholas,
The people or the rats?

Nicholas,
And speaking of Haiti - it was clear cut by slaves for the profit of a few.
It wasn’t the number of people but the evil actions of people who dehumanized man that perpetrated the devastation of Haiti.
As for pollution, it is usually the result of negligence and short term solutions.

Well, since there are than 7 billion humans now, and the number is steadily rising, humans don’t seem to be much at risk just yet.  Except for our standard of living, which is going down dramatically, with lower expectations ahead. There are lots of city rats, but the wild forest and jungle rats are dying off.  Most other animals aren’t doing so well, either. Many have been made extinct recently, by human hand. More are going.  Have you read about the oceans lately? Bad news, if you are a conscientious steward of God’s Creation. Which I realize, most of you are not.

Nicholas
Prove it.

Hi Magda, what exactly do you want me to prove? That an extinction crisis is occurring right now, with declining quality of life for the ever increasing human population? I would be happy to discuss almost any issues relating to this within the format of these comments. Do you have proof that humans are fundamentally ‘different’ from other creatures? Why are they exempt from basic laws of biology and evolution?? I am assuming you mean that they have souls, but please enlighten me about your beliefs. You are correct about Haiti,  the island has been wrecked by terrible practices with regards to land use and ownership. Can this ever be fixed? I doubt it. It has a large captive population that will be forever subject to the worst abuses of capitalism.

Haiti’s being abused by capitalism?
What do you mean by quality of life?
Evolution is survival of the fittest.  Isn’t that the core of your belief?

Nicholas,
The questions above are for you.

Magda, yes, Haiti was raped and sold a colonial outpost from the beginning of it’s history by the British and the French. They still speak French today, and they are mostly Catholic, of mixed slave descent. The original inhabitants were largely killed and displaced. It was heavily logged, mined, farmed. The land is mostly owned by a few rich individuals and corporations. The bleak future of Haiti is that of a captive colony of low wage workers with no resources of their own, forever doomed to serving industries which treat them as disposable and abundant. 
  Quality of life refers to access to of things necessary for life, and that enrich someone’s life. Healthcare, education, stability of community, etc., as you should well know. Haitians today (and increasingly people around the world) are losing access to water, education, health care, safe sufficient food, etc. Plus almost all wild nature is being transformed into ecologically degraded areas that have been abused by resource extraction. There are more cancers of industrial origin because of the pollution, also.
And finally, evolution is all about cooperating in groups over time. They are called ‘ecosystems’, and they support our basic life functions. You might to Google it sometime between Mass and Holy Days.

And you might read Darwin’s
“The Origin of Species
by Means of Natural Selection,
        or
The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”
First Edition
and watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8
And your vignetted account of Haitian history shows that the state of Haiti is due to colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and abject heresy - the twisted practice of religion there is not Roman Catholicism.

Nicholas -
Do you mean medical care, as in taking care of the sick and disabled??
Haiti had a once stable community?  What do you mean by that?
Papa Doc’s family?

Almost all wild nature is being degraded?

Nature is greatly underestimated.

Hi Magda, your acquaintance with Charles Darwin is commendable! In this I think you are significantly ahead of peers at the Vatican, who just recently acknowledged Copernicus, isn’t that right? Have you read anything related to evolution that was written in the last century? I would recommend E.O Wilson’s ‘The Diversity of Life’, which explains population in easy to understand terms in the forward. Jared Diamond has several good books that can help a non-specialist understand natural history and human culture, notably ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, and ‘Collapse’, which has an entire chapter devoted to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Wasn’t Aristide a Roman Catholic priest? I think that most Haitians consider themselves good Catholics, though some of them have that voodoo thing going on.  I guess it’s easy to fall back on paganism when your Christian masters torture and rape you.
  Yes, medical care is taking care of the sick and disabled, though I would want to emphasize preventative care- nutrition, education, exercise, and environmental protection. Fewer sick people later=more resources to help those who do get sick.
And yes, nature may be ‘underestimated’, but still most of the big animals and plants that were here a few centuries ago are gone now. They are extinct! And countless small creatures and their habitats are gone as well.  And FYI, colonialism and slavery are facets of capitalism. It’s a multi-headed beast that is all around you.

So you suppose Paris should never have been built? London?  Amsterdam?
Rome? 
Do you feel we should only have an agrarian society, except for what you need?
Like a bicycle.  Where did that bicycle come from?

And your vignetted account of Haitian history shows that the state of Haiti is due to colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and abject heresy - the twisted practice of religion there is not Roman Catholicism.

Hi Magda, our focus on Haiti for the last few posts is not really very productive. There many places where overpopulation is a crisis. Islands are especially vulnerable, as the area for exploitation is so limited. Madagascar, Indonesia, Java, many others are in trouble because they have too many people for available resources. Increasingly, we are seeing this situation on larger land masses as well, like in Yemen. 
  You are either in great denial about the history and practices of your religion, or just ignorant. Since you are an older Catholic female, maybe you were denied access to higher education so you could begin birthing and keep on tithing? In any case, don’t take my word for any of this, just read a history book! 
You can consider that evolution is a lot like history, just dealing with longer periods of time, and focusing on living creatures and ecosystems instead of just human culture. It’s really come along way since Darwin, though he was spot on about so much. And new fossils emerge all the time. The early history of life is especially fascinating. In Catholic time, that’s the first couple of days after God created the universe.
I asked before, do you beleive in the concept of overpopulation, just in the case of feral cats, urban deer, or other so called ‘invasive’ species? And please tell, why are humans so different from other living things? Or do you know? What did the priests tell you back in school? I went to a good Catholic School myself, St. Thomas Aquinas in Florissant, Mo.
BTW, my favorite bike is made of bamboo, whoda thunk it?

Nicholas -
How many bicycles do you have?
Where were they made?
How much did you pay for that bamboo frame?
Have you considered that maybe I out read you years ago?  That maybe you are just spouting the garbage I used to believe?  That I was educated to believe?
You think you are enlightening me?
Or maybe you just like arguing in blogs and you don’t really hold such antiquated views.  The ones I was taught as a freshman in high school.

Well Magda, let’s see- so you were formerly a progressive educated liberal thinker, who converted to Catholicism because you realized how empty and devoid of joy it was to live in the real world? Seriously, you could have a PhD in Physics for all I know. You ask me questions, I try to answer them. I ask you questions, not only do you not answer them, but you attack me in various ways. I would enjoy a discussion about the very serious topic of overpopulation. OK, humans are different than other life forms, so they don’t have to follow the same laws, that’s what you seem to believe. I’m asking you why? I am taking part in this forum because I was hoping to read comments from intelligent people who are concerned also. Look back at some of what you have written, there’s not much there of substance. You may have read the New Testament 5000 times, so what? The current Pope is a great scholar, though his speciality is 9th-11th century theology. I would not accept him as authority on ecology. Which is what I studied, not just in books, but around the world, in the wild, in gardens, in cities, and over great spans of time. From what I have seen here so far, I would say I am more knowledgeable about that subject by far than you are. So prove me wrong and blow my mind with some insight.  Have you read or seen the book ‘Endless Forms Most Beautiful’, by Sean Carol? What did you think of that one? What were some of these many books you read that were found in the end to be inadequate?  What are you beliefs, anyway? If my beliefs are so antiquated, please spread some of that enlightenment over this way!

Nicholas -
The scope of my experience and education is broader than yours.

The Pope agrees with you on many points about the abuse of environment by humans.  His answers are more challenging than yours.  More encompassing, with greater insight into the repercussions of varying solutions. 
It is obvious that you see the Beautiful.  But Goodness, Truth, and Oneness are necessary and constant.

THE WORLD IS NOT OVER POPULATED. WE ARE JUST MIS-POPULATED. WE CAN PUT THE 6.8 BILLION PEOPLE NOW IN THE WORLD IN OUR PROVINCE OF ALBERTA CANADA AND WE ARE STILL NOT OVER POPULATED. THAT’S HOW BIG THE WORLD IS. THE DENSITY WILL EVEN BE LESS THAN THE DENSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY USA.

PLEASE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ADVOCATES OR ABORTION ADVOCATES DON’T TELL US WE ARE OVERPOPULATED.

DR. REY. J. ECHAVEZ

Just FYI, the link in the second-to-last paragraph is broken. I found a working one here:

http://greenfield.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/History/21H-991JFall2003/351DF615-2CDC-4D70-829F-9362450C1571/0/lec7.pdf