Is the end of the world nearer due to uncontrolled population explosion?

Book Reviewed: Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? by Alan Weisman

Author Alan Weisman makes a rational argument in favor of lowering the birthrate so that the planet can survive with a livable environment and a long and healthy population. At the current growth rate of one million people every 4.5 days, we are going to be ten billion by the year 2100. Will there be sufficient resources on the planet to support us? Will global warming leave the planet in disarray with much of coastal cities like New York and much of state of Florida under water? The climate change's 2007 inter-governmental report says that in a worst case scenario of less than two feet rise in water level by the year 2100 will be catastrophic for our world. Hurricane Sandy riding into New York City is a grim reminder of what would happen if the polar ice melts at the current rate, thawing of methane deposits resulting in a global climate change.

The earth can't sustain our current numbers, and that must come down. The author offers a few basic ideas to combat this crisis. How about adapting one child per family policy across nations? There will be only 1.6 billion by the end of this century; the same as in the year 1900. The author has travelled extensively both in United States and foreign countries talking to people about the need to curb birthrate, and surprisingly a large number of people he met or spoke to agree with the problem but disagree with his method.

This is not to cull anyone alive but we need to take control of ourselves, and humanely bring down our numbers, otherwise nature will hand out a pile of pink slips. Watching survival of fittest on Nat Geo channel is interesting, but if it happens to your own species, especially for our grandchildren or great grandchildren, it is not pretty. Television reality shows showing survivalists who hoard food, medicine, clothes, and arming themselves to the teeth in anticipation of full economic/political demise are looking more and more like realists.