The world is overpopulated.

This is also my first debate. I find it noteworthy that Pro argues, "the world IS overpopulated," as in seven billion people will consume more resources than they can produce, so someone or several someones, must be eliminated/allowed to expire without replacement, and no one/only certain people should be allowed/should choose to reproduce, or less likely we must immediately colonize other worlds. If that is not the intent, I would like to know what it is. That could be another debate in itself, so here I will show that: 1)Natural resources such as minerals and hydrocarbon-based fuels will not run out at current population's consumption levels. 2)The earth as a whole will not run out of food or productive farmland from current population levels. 3)Environmental stability is not in danger from current population levels. Despite correlation in some regions, causation is not present. 4)There is good reason to believe population can continue to grow from its current level by significant amounts without endangering the amount of resources available to the population as a whole. +Mineral resources are too numerous in variety to list in this argument, so I will limit myself to the example of iron, which has been in use for thousands of years, and local deposits have been exhausted in the past, so I hope Pro will agree that it is a good example of a critical mineral that would be in danger of exhaustion if overpopulation is a danger. "Andrew Carnegie, a pioneer of the American steel industry, worried about the impeding depletion of the richer [iron] ores, consisting mainly of iron. In his address to the Conference of Governors at the White House in 1908 he said: I have for many years been impressed with the steady depletion of our iron ore supply. It is staggering to learn that our once-supposed ample supply of rich iron ores can hardly outlast the generation now appearing, leaving only the leaner ores for the later years of the century. It is my judgement, as a practical man accustomed to dealing with those material factors on which our national prosperity is based, that it is time to take thought for the morrow. But again, technology has expanded such that today we can exploit ore with just 30-40% iron. It is estimated that the currently identified reserves leaves us with 297 years of consumption at present levels. As we can see...there were actually many more years (sic)of consumption left in 2000 than in 1957, despite the fact that annual production has more that doubled. Actually, since the US Geological Service in 1957 estimated the world resource at 25 billion tons, we have used 35 billion tons and now the reserve base estimate is at some 300 billion tons." -The Skeptical Environmentalist, p141, 142 Humans, and other creatures, will instinctively go for the proverbial "low hanging fruit" first. Bog irons and other easy pickings went first, then smelting lower quality ores found on the surface, recycling already refined scrap, and digging shallow pits for high quality ores, then digging deeper for them, then learning to refine slightly lower quality ores when the prior are exhausted, and so on, is a logical progression for any metal producer, and one that we see throughout history. As the higher quality ores are exhausted, prices will temporarily go up, making costlier refinement methods practical, and once the development costs of those methods are paid for, cost for the product will decrease with free market competition. More efficient methods will be invented, until a more economical alternative is discovered (such as an eventual surplus of aluminum 1), and more remote regions will be opened for exploitation. Recent metal finds Afghanistan 2 and Africa 3 continue to increase the world's supply of untapped raw materials, and many regions remain largely unexplored for minerals. (Antarctica 4, the ocean floor 5) +Hydrocarbon products are currently critical energy sources around the world, so I will use them as my energy source example. "True, Earth is spherical and limited, but this is not necessarily a relevant objection. The problem is rather how large are the deposits that are...accessible for exploitation. These deposits can seem limited, but if the price(sic) increases this will increase the incentive to find more deposits and develop better techniques for extracting these deposits. Consequently, the price increase actually increases our total reserves, causing the price to fall again. … ...it is clear we have more oil left, not less and less...How can we have used ever more and still have even more left? … "Known resources" is not a finite entity. It is not that we know all the places with oil, and now just need to pump it up. We explore new areas and find new oil. But since searching costs money, new searches will not be initiated too far in advance of production. Consequently, new oil fields will be continuously added as demand rises. This is part of the reason why we see years of consumption increasing and not decreasing. Actually, it is rather odd that anyone could have thought that known resources pretty much represent what is left, and therefore predict dire problems when these have run out. It is a little bit akin to glancing into my refrigerator and saying: "Oh, you've only got food for three days. In four days you will die of starvation." No, in two days I will go to the supermarket and buy some more food. The point is that oil will come not only from the sources we already know but also from many other sources which we still do not know. U.S. Geological Surveys have regularly been making assessments of the total undiscovered resources of oil and gas, and writing in March 2000 they state: "Since 1981, each of the last four of these assessments has shown a slight increase in the combined volume of identified reserves and undiscovered resources." ...An initial drilling typically exploits only 20% of the oil in the reservoir. Even with present-day, advanced techniques...more than half the resource commonly remains in the ground...It is estimated that the ten largest oil fields in the US will still contain 63% of their original oil when production closes down. Consequently there is still much to be reaped in this area. In the latest US Geological Survey assessment, such technical improvement is expected to yield more than a 50% increase of identified reserves." -The Skeptical Environmentalist, p124, 125 I can't judge Pro too harshly since I've never set up a debate before, but I might have provided more time with this many rounds, so in order to post this in a timely manner, I will put up my argument on food during the next round. 1 http://sam.davyson.com... 2 http://www.nytimes.com... 3 http://www.newstimeafrica.com... 4 http://www.coolantarctica.com... 5 http://www.popularmechanics.com...