...our biggest problem is definitely overpopulation, which in most species is self regulating ( as soon as the environment cannot sustain the population, the population dies off.....something we have managed to work around to both our benefit and our detriment) and i DO think we need to seriously start cutting back on childbirth in the west as we are the ones that can keep breeding without direct consequence to our wellbeing....the famines in africa etc are also a direct result of human interference......mainly the introduction of western european farming and culture into societies ill suited to them....
part of western culture that has contributed to famines elsewhere,
is the introduction of vaccines and western medicine
compassionate in the short to medium run ...
hard questions
i agree that overpopulation is one of the largest problems we have caused and face
technology allows us to over use and deplete food resources,
e.g. fisheries,
without giving us a replacement
ditto, resources needed to grow food,
e.g. top soil, fresh water,
and the implicit bet/gamble is that there will be more technology
to allow us to replace the food gotten from these resources,
that will prevent massive human die-offs - the deaths of billions of humans
that is,
it seems likely there will be a point where human populations will
again be "self-regulating"
there is no easy answer and from a compassionate level one cannot simply say good we need fewer people.....but the truth is that we DO need to severely curtail our population growth.....and no I cannot think of one person or government morally capable of choosing who gets to breed/live/etc
the communist china policy,
of one child per family
is at least fair,
and distributes the "pain"/choice across society
the problem that communist china is facing in a few decades
is caring for an elderly under-productive population that
is twice the size of the productive population
that is,
the generation of "1 child/family" children will have to care for
their parent's generation, which is twice as large.
one person's income caring for three people,
plus any grandchildren
economists widely believe that communist china
growth will slow/stagnate/go negative then