Galeano, in the introduction to his Open veins of latin america, states that the only reason south america isn’t as densely populated as Europe, is intentional underdevelopment, and colonialism. The European powers intentionally depopulated the indigenous of many of these countries by turning their economies into mono-crop / mono-mineral mercantile export ones from the 1500s onward.
I’m sure someone has tried to figure out earth’s carrying capacity, but we’re not even remotely close to it. There isn’t even any vital resource whose production doesn’t scale with population growth.
The fear-mongering about population growth is really only coming from euro-amerikkkan capitalists and white supremacists like Bill gates, who are mirroring their 1800s counterparts with population control attempts in places like Africa. Bill Gates openly says he’s trying to stop “population increase in places we don’t want it”, showing his fear of the growth of potentially threatening non-white populations.
I recently learned that of the reasons for this neocolonial population control is to make sure that over-exploited regions don’t become problematic once their natural resources are fully extracted.
Over-exploited countries are essentially forced to be dependent on the US for food. They pay for that food with some of the money generated via resource extraction. They have no agriculture of their own beyond cash crops like cocoa or coffee, which obviously cannot feed people. So once those resources are gone, the money to import food is gone, and these countries will have to experience some pretty serious population reduction before local agriculture can sustain the remaining population.
It’s not just individual malthusian billionaires peddling this either, this has been official World Bank and IMF policy since the seventies at least.
I would like to make a point that I think a lot of people overlook. Yes, we can sustain this number and it’s only an issue now because of capitalism. But even under a much more efficient system like communism, while the overall burden on the environment would be significantly reduced, I think caution should be taken saying we would have no problem with a significant increase to population.
My reason is simply that every extra farm, pasture, living space, recreational space, work space etc, takes away from a natural environment for other plants and animals. Of course there are also ways to design cities, towns, etc, to be more friendly to the local wildlife and fauna but even then it’s still putting more stress on the area.
I’m not saying we need to start reducing the number of humans or that the population needs to immediately stop increasing. Just wanted to make a point that I feel gets overlooked.
I also want to add a counter argument to the commonly made point of "we could fit all of humanity in [insert land mass that seems to be not all that large in comparison to the size of earth]. While there merit in this point there’s also a point to make that most of the time that calculation is made of how much space a human need in order to live. But what a human needs to live vs what they need to be happy and content are different. Humans need excess space. Not just in the direct living quarters but to go out and do outside stuff. Walk around, explore, exercise, work, etc etc. Sure the direct housing could fit in that space but what about everything else we go do? And those spaces outside the direct quarters are, again, taking away from the natural habitats, even if designed with those things in mind it’s till a lot of space where humans will be frequenting often, which is still a disruption of nature to a degree. Again, not arguing that the world can’t handle our current number but just that it’s not a black and while issue regarding increasing that population significantly.
