Reply #40

I may seem (to you) to be saying there's an ideal human population level, but I'm not. If anything I'm saying what I've said for the last few years, that there is too much human activity on the planet, not necessarily too many people. I have no idea whether there are too many people, but I have no doubt there is too much human activity. I don't have any desires about the number of people, I just feel that if we're going to try solving insoluble problems, we might consider tackling the most urgent ones first.

And no, there is no difference between people dying from lower carrying capacity or because of "overpopulation" (whatever that might mean) - I don't think I drew any such distinction. A population that exceeds the carrying capacity of its niche dies back. There's nothing moralistic about it - it just happens. It doesn't make any difference to nature whether the members of the population are children or adults. If the resources can't support them, they go.

BTW, you're putting an awful lot of words in my mouth.

Edited to add, I'm really trying to tell everyone who is hung up on the idea of overpopulation not to worry - the number of humans is going to be coming down regardless of whether we do anything about it directly.