Over population - A Threat since 1971?

I was recently watching 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' which was released in 1971. One of the characters, who is after to exterminate the apes upon their return to Earth year 1975. He mentions several problems occuring in the USA such and among them is over population. His exact words where 'population explosion'. Now, I am aware this movie did highlight concerns at the time, how ever i did not conceive the over population would have been an issue in consideration as early as 1970's?

Yes it was at the top of cultural awareness at that time.
Here's a book that most baby boomers have read called The Population Bomb. en.wikipedia.org... written in 1968.

WWII soldiers coming home after the war, and Korean War soldiers according to some sources ... had a "baby boom".

The baby boomers were indoctrinated through media and mostly schooling about the hazards of over-population. These baby boomers grew up and had BELOW zero population growth babies in the early, mid and possibly late 70's.

The children of the baby boomers were the "me" generation and were indoctrinated by media and schooling that agriculture would keep pace with population. This suited the "me" generation so they went on to continue the excesses of their grandparents.

Lifestyles changed between WWII and the 70's too. Rural America was becoming more urbanized and the suburbs mushroomed in the 60's. The need for families to have large numbers of children to tend the fields was gone with mass-production and the fewer but larger farms. Instead of a dozen children raking a field, you now have huge tractors and irrigation systems to manage the workload.

This agricultural modernization countered the predictions of The Population Bomb. But;as you will soon see in your lifetime, genetically-engineered seed controlled by a mega corporations such as Monsanto will be the final ruin of agriculture as we know it. Already, all of the corn in Mexico is cross-pollinated by the wind with Monsanto corn ... and Monsanto's next year's seed is genetically engineered to NOT reproduce viable seed. This is only one of many major horror stories and I'm off topic, sorry.

Anyway, The Population Bomb's predictions for famine in the 70's and 80's came and went; but, the threat did not disappear. The threat was 'delayed'.

the earth is huge. we are no where near over populating the earth. its one of the crazier thing i have ever heard.

first lets look at how america is structured compared to a proportionately populated area, india. some may say over populated, but i say populated.

america built horizontally with frontyards, backyards, with pointless grass that has to be mowed for visual purpose. americans, myself included = stuck on old taught ways.

india, barely any yards(maybe?), poor in some areas yes, but the key here is it is the most populated land (or 2nd) but at the same time its growing, has room too, poeple are nice, country not going to war... blah blah blah..

long story short, its the way we go about things that bring up these over populated, doomsday scenarios.

ats is a bunch of crap nowadays... barely any positive thought, new ideas or whatever. just a bunch of nontrusting poeple (like myself)
let me qoute "I am prepared for doomsday... ARE YOU?"
ummm no i live my life trying not to think about poop like that thankyou very much.

overpopulation, come on. we will be over populated once we have buildings vertically, that have the same surface area as the earth, and when these buildings are over populated. we haven't even begun to get close to that. overpopulation = a LONG way off if you think the way I do about it.

get rid of monsanta corn. use your back and front yard for you food. I wish i had a house to do that.

peace out

Thomas Malthus wrote about overpopulation in 1798.

Malthus

Something definitly needs to be done. In fact it should have been done a very long time ago. That the catastrophe is upon us is evident by the dying children in the 3rd world. No area of the world should have to import its food and no other should be expected to feed them just becauses they have bred themselves to oblivion.

Ok even if there is an issue, we can not ignore Human rights.

Let them starve to death? For they bring it upon them selves?

We should look at education NOT execution. We are merely living by double standards here in the west. We claim we are bringing democracy to Iraq, but we are bringing a dictatorship to 3rd world countries by letting them die or prohibiting them from re producing.

Look at China, one child per family, still over populated and bigger then India which does not have these rules.

This is not an issue that can be dismissed with a few words and requires studies into all sorts of issues.

Why is this in skunk works?

Overpopulation is about carrying capacity of an ecosystem. In other words how many of what types of plants and animals can a ecosystem support and what happens as individual species populations ebb and flow among the rest of the species.

If we see the world is becoming overpopulated then why can't we plan and educate in oreder to bring it back down? Why should there have to be a violent reduction as many CTers suggest?

We just have to learn to manage ourselves better than we do our fish and game populations.