Some make the observation

That we have an invasion

Of bursting population,

A graven situation

Causing contamination

Of the world’s operation.

How to solve this situation?

Persuasion? Separation?

Birth-control information?

Fewer Caucasians, Asians,

Nations and generations?

What is the right equation?

Perhaps we need inspiration

To try love, not confrontation,

Forgiveness, not domination,

Golden Rule legislation

For the human heart basin.

Less counting, more cooperation.

When I was in elementary school in the late 1950s sober minded teachers for whom climate change just meant springs days living in Iowa, used to grimly tell us that by the time we were grown there would be only two square feet of soil of all living humans. Lots of practicing Catholics then and certainly before the pill came to Iowa, but we all left with ta grime feeling that we had to do something to make sure that did not happen.

The pill chopped population growth down to 3.29 kids in the 1960s where I lived but I still knew China and other far away places were probably gobbling up the square footage so even in those summers of love, my generation was careful not to reproduce by whatever means even wire hanger abortions.

I had no children. Neither did my brother. We had the same teachers growing up, him being only a class ahead of me and we solemnly took to heart not wanting to live on two square feet and killed off the family genes in doing so.

My brother moved to California in 1976 and my husband and I drove to visit him through hours and even days of vast barren nothingness that is most of Iowa, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and most of California. I told my husband about the two square foot predicted by my teacher and wondered however anyone taking this long drive could have ever believed that could be true.

I read the work of young writers here who are living their lives under the belief, learned in school, that they are the last generation ever believing they have no futures - and living their lives appropriately under the burden of this knowledge - believing the planet will dissolve in the destruction due to not recycling plastic straws or whatever, believing, as I did, that my small town American life choices could make or break the whole wide world.

It is the big lie. What happens in these United States is not comparable to other cultures in places now made so much closer, but still, who live obedient to what their schooling and culture taught them as impressionable children. We are not the world and never will be.

I believe human overpopulation is a very real danger, not only to our planet, but also to the mental and physical health of those who are a part of large families, living in developing countries and experiencing material deprivation at its peak. I live in Pakistan so I can tell you first-hand that the living conditions of majority of the people here are pitiful. Firstly, people living in large families have no privacy or peace due to which studying, let alone living becomes unbearable. The poor go largely uneducated and uninformed about topics like sex, contraception and family planning, firstly because these topics are still considered taboos in our society which leads to overpopulation. Secondly, the men who are fully aware of condoms don't bother using them because their pleasure is their main priority, not what they are putting their women and children through and instead insist women to go on birth control pills which have been known to have severe side effects including depression and mood swings which brings me to my third point. Since people are constantly being financially exploited by the government, they can't afford education which leads to less knowledge, information and wisdom about such topics and they blindly keep on reproducing as if their life depends on it, which it does in a way. Poor couples see the production of children as the production of their own personal workforce which they can then use to increase their income and improve their lifestyle. However, due to their attitudes towards life, such as present time orientation, fatalism and immediate gratification, they tend to spend the money faster rather than save up for the future, that is to say if they believe in once. Abortion is another controversial topic and is largely seen in a negative light due to which women feel pressured into giving birth and carrying their babies to term, even though it is their body and their right to do with it as they please but our men as usual always need to have a say in every matter concerning women. I honestly find this need to control and police women's bodies very concerning and often find myself wondering why nothing is ever enough for these men. Like... Get a life?

As for our planet we know how much it is suffering due to human overpopulation. Human overpopulation is causing pollution of all sorts which is damaging our ozone layer, our oil, coal and gas reserves are quickly depleting and since trees are being cut down to make homes for people, there is a loss in the production of fresh oxygen. Honestly, I think we might suffocate to death if things keep going on as they are.

Hopefully, that proves to be an exaggeration. We can always switch to natural, infinite resources like wind, air, water and solar power to produce energy however my one and only prayer is that the government of Pakistan comes to its senses soon so that it can start investing in the education sector of the country and raise awareness about topics like human overpopulation so that we all can live better lives.

We thought the growth would stop. That it would slow down and plateau before it gets too bad. We were wrong

As the human population increased, the reverse happened for all other animal and plant life, both on land and in sea. The climate did change, again, and again, and always for the worse. Zoo's soon had to grow their animals from petri dishes, or just have artwork of long dead animals and plants. Artificial intelligence only made things worse, since the best computers were made for war. War waged over the small amount of resources that everyone wanted more of. Copper, Iron, gold, silver, oil, food, and water were but a few these resources.

It was not the climate change that did us in, but ourselves. There were simply to many of us. It did not help that some advanced economies, distinctly made it worse by allowing incentives for childbirth. However, I can't blame them, much. Children have always been good for local industry and society. But something needed to be done.

Originally, it was thought that ten billion was going to be the breaking point, but science was able to increase food supply with some planetary sacrifices, up to a point. Thirteen billion was that point, everything came crashing down when we past that number as a species. Due to the lack of food and water, World War IV broke out in mid 2039. This war caused population to drop by nine billion. Not all were killed in direct conflict, but the war indirectly caused it for sure. The war caused disease to spread, and famines to become more common and destructive. It also destroyed the supply chains around that world. A contagious sterility virus, formed and released by the american states, themselve vaccinated against it, was around the globe within 13 months after being released. Nuclear weapons were also used, notably released by the russian republic against the american states in retaliation for the virus. Now, in the year 2051, the war is over, over with no clear winner. The last remaining warring nations were each toppled themselves by civil wars that resulted in only further anarchy.

Most have no hope for the future, the sterility virus affects the entirety of the remaining population, and nearly all modern adavancements are destroyed, or exist with none living having the training required to understand them. However, I still ask myself everyday if it would have even be possible to avoid this fate. I always reach the same conclusion. This was inevitable. Wanting to biologically reproduce is tied to our genes. It is the very purpose of life, evolutionary speaking. We just got too good at it. We were like rabbits breeding without any predators to control our numbers.

However, I still had hope for the future due to my work. My work focused on the study of viruses, I was one of the first european scientists that had discovered the americans sterility virus after it was released. Ever since that discovery, I have focused my work on counter acting the affects of the virus, hoping to reverse it. However, with this last journel recording, I regret all my work. I not only have failed in my purpose, but I've found that my work as only resulted in releasing a new and more deadly virus out into world. I am sorry.

With this, my confession, I must bid you au revoir. The rope waits for me.

Jacques A. Dubois

I agree with the elite that the Earth beneath has become replete with 7 billion humans who are more bitter than sweet.

What an amazing feat how we continue to repeat lessons not yet learned which cause us defeat.

Many with no home save a box on a street...some square of concrete....confused and disarmed by the child inside whose parents did mistreat....

An equal number of people having a whole different spreadsheet...one with a family and mortgage and debt and a marriage complete with an affair they believe is discreet.

Then, you add in all this extra heat. Here in the south winter is obsolete.

Having said that I would love to meet the policy makers who hold an upper seat and get to play god naming us chaff while they think themselves wheat.

Why do they get to decide who should live and who should die? Who should be sterilized and robbed of the dream of creating new life?

Is it because they own the world's money which can afford them this lie? Afford them the ability to turn a blind, evil eye?

I sigh.

I don't cry.

And there is no fucking point in asking them why because this is truth it is no lie, they do have a name for you and I.

Useless Eaters.

One night a certain economist sat down

And as he poked at his food

A horrendous epiphany befell him

"O woe is me

To have seen what I have seen

For in the end, we are all doomed."

The pandemonium of expanding industrialism

Corroborated his waxing fears

About too many people emerging

Too many people that he didn't hold dear

They were like a plethora of invasive insects

Rapidly scurrying about

Wandering off into unwelcome territory

And stealing chunks off food before finally heading out

"Eureka!" his inner voice yelled

Even though the hope in his heart fell

He know realized something

That was crucial for him to tell

"There are too many people

And not enough food

Before long, we shall all be doomed."

However, it wasn't that cut and clear

There were many other factors

That our dear Thomas Malthus did not foresee

Agricultural revolution was one

And contraception was another

Food production did increase indeed

Human growth did not surpass it then

There's a chance it might not now

At the moment, overpopulation isn't something I fear

It's a topic I seldom think about

Unless I'm in a state of insomnia induced boredom

And nothing else can lull me to sleep

However,

In the event that overpopulation does pose a threat

I would kindly introduce my country's politicians

To Jonathan Swift's wonderful thesis

Regarding a nutritious diet

It'll definitely curb some of the population

While fattening the rest

- | -

This prompt reminded me of Penelope Scott's song "Rät"

"I bit the apple 'cuz I trusted you

But it tastes like Thomas Malthus

Your proposal is immodest and insane

And I hope someday Selmers rides her fucking train"

Sure it looks like it, sitting in a vehicle, sure it looks like it in a school lubchroom.

But overpopulation is a scientific impossibility.

There can be peak population,

But as food is finite and so is room. And so no worries, we shall never OVERpopulate. If we have a population and it still grows then we can keep at it for a bit longer, pushing and shoving. We'll know it when enough is enough. But still never over population...

To those who claim the earth is overpopulated I agree in a few ways. In many ways us humans over populate the earth with opinions and in other ways, possibly less, we over populate with our being here.

Think, even if we aren't over populated now, we could very well be in a few years, unless the whole pandemic and the views of certain people kill us off. If we have more medications and less health issues later in life we could easily overpopulate. There are more than enough humans as it is, we are in the top five of the more populated species on earth, only bats and rodents out rank us. When you consider the way the life span on earth has increased over the century... well just think of where we will be in a couple of years.

Can it really be considered overpopulation if we got to where we are naturally? Cities and skyscrapers are man made yet stand as natural parts of the landscape, just as the beaver dam or the anthill. We don't question our cities though they are relics; connections to the past designed to form the future, existing in the present often as roadblocks to progress.

I believe the idea of overpopulation stems from misanthropy, a general hatred of humanity, which is a fear of death manifested into cynicism as a way of protecting the psyche from the harsh reality that we all eventually stop breathing.

Overpopulation is not a thing. Human beings are intelligent enough to get where we've gotten, and now we are noticing the fact that the ways in which our ancestors have developed society no longer has the ability to sustain the mighty need of our population. As it stands at 1:32 PM on January 13 2022, there are approximately 7.9 Billion individual human beings living on this planet, all of whom require food and water, love and kindness, purpose and pain, in order to stay alive. Our system cannot provide this to all of them. We are overpopulated insofar as human society is unable to conveniently cover the costs of its continuous creation of human beings.

The entire human population can fit uncomfortably within the borders of New York City. Imagine a world where 7.9 billion people exist comfortably in a landmass the size of the United states. What would need to be done to achieve that? Imagine how amazing our infrastructure would look if we based our designs around such a massive population. Imagine how freeing it would feel to live in a world where the Human Being bases its progress on moving forward in new directions, rather than evolving out of the ever more complex primordial methods.

Too big to fail isn't a thing either, but I don't think it means we have too many lives.

I wonder if the world's leading creative minds ever sit down in a truly novel and creative intention to bust the walls down. The futurists of the past (I'm thinking Disney here, all anti-semitism aside) were unafraid to speak each fantastical idea as though they were writing the narrative of the future of humanity like an episode of Star Trek. I wonder if people en masse are capable of breaking free of the preconception that it must always be the way it was in order to ensure happiness and survival. I wonder if people will crumble under the weight of their own misguided responsibilities.

I wonder if science fiction has made me an idealist.