page_title: Human overpopulation
section_title: Dangers and effects
hierarchical_section_title: Human overpopulation / Dangers and effects
caption_attribution_description: English: Crowds during rush hour at Asok station
context_page_description: Human overpopulation is when there are too many people for the environment to sustain. In more scientific terms, there is overshoot when the ecological footprint of a human population in a geographical area exceeds that place's carrying capacity, damaging the environment faster than it can be repaired by nature, potentially leading to an ecological and societal collapse. Overpopulation could apply to the population of a specific region, or to world population as a whole.
  Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates, an increase in immigration, or an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources.
  Advocates of population moderation cite issues like exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity, global warming, potential or imminent ecological collapse, impact on quality of life, and risk of mass starvation or even extinction as a basis to argue for population decline.
  A more controversial definition of overpopulation, as advocated by Paul Ehrlich, is a situation where a population is in the process of depleting non-renewable resources.
context_section_description: Many of the problems associated with overpopulation are explored in the dystopic science fiction film Soylent Green, where an overpopulated Earth suffers from food shortages, depleted resources and poverty and in the documentary Aftermath: Population Overload, which explores what would happen if the human population suddenly doubled in size.
  David Attenborough described the level of human population on the planet as a multiplier of all other environmental problems. In 2013, he described humanity as "a plague on the Earth" that needs to be controlled by limiting population growth.
  Most biologists and sociologists see overpopulation as a serious threat to the quality of human life. Some deep ecologists, such as the radical thinker and polemicist Pentti Linkola, see human overpopulation as a threat to the entire biosphere.
  The effects of overpopulation are compounded by overconsumption. According to Paul R. Ehrlich:
  Rich western countries are now siphoning up the planet's resources and destroying its ecosystems at an unprecedented rate. We want to build highways across the Serengeti to get more rare earth minerals for our cellphones. We grab all the fish from the sea, wreck the coral reefs and put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We have triggered a major extinction event ... A world population of around a billion would have an overall pro-life effect. This could be supported for many millennia and sustain many more human lives in the long term compared with our current uncontrolled growth and prospect of sudden collapse ... If everyone consumed resources at the US level – which is what the world aspires to – you will need another four or five Earths. We are wrecking our planet's life support systems.
  However, Ehrlich's earlier predictions were controversial. In 1968 he wrote a book The Population Bomb, in which he famously stated that "[i]n the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
  Some economists, such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams argue that third world poverty and famine are caused in part by bad government and bad economic policies.
  Some problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation and over-consumption are presented in the sections below.
caption: Crowded people on Asok BTS Station during the rush hour in Bangkok, Thailand
exif: {"Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone XR", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Snapseed 2.19.280302127", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:23 18:32:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "222", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[13, 44, 711/50]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[100, 33, 3761/100]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "48721/15374", "GPS GPSSpeedRef": "K", "GPS GPSSpeed": "0", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "1048783/3843", "GPS GPSDestBearingRef": "T", "GPS GPSDestBearing": "1048783/3843", "GPS Tag 0x001F": "291465/484", "Image GPSInfo": "778", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1122", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "13925", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "320", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:07:23 18:32:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:07:23 18:32:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "115437/20452", "EXIF ApertureValue": "54823/32325", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "27893/28044", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17/4", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[2013, 1511, 2217, 1330]", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "860", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "860", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "26", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[17/4, 17/4, 9/5, 9/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone XR back camera 4.25mm f/1.8"}