On November 15, the world’s population surpassed the 8 billion milestone according to the United Nations. Though we may briefly acknowledge, celebrate even, such an achievement, an ever-increasing population brings with it its own slew of significant problems. In lieu of these issues, finding solutions becomes our next biggest task, and we can only do so by first recognizing the fact that overpopulation is a natural phenomenon and adapt to it rather than work against it.

It seems that stabilizing the population is the top priority for lawmakers —  it is no secret that governments around the world have already placed in several measures to either slow down, or halt entirely the growth of the population. Notable examples are China’s (now withdrawn) one child policy, or family planning schemes in countless countries around the world including South Korea. Aside from the inevitable moral implications involved in implementing such solutions, perhaps it should be more of a significant surprise to realize that none of these proposed and carried-out methods have ever worked in a positive manner — with China now facing severe repercussions in their lack of a younger work-force as their population ages. 

Other than these direct methods employed to actively hamper population increase, there have also been many attempts to accept the fact that our numbers will continue to rise and instead find new innovative ways to adapt to this phenomenon. Of course, several of these methods have already been implemented, such as hydroponics to save space and maximize efficiency in growing crops or the intensified use of sustainable resources. However, since these technologies have had a relatively slow rate of innovation and we are still culturally not used to growing crops in water or having solar panels or wind turbines installed in our homes, these developments have had a limited impact.

Thus, we must, as a species, ask ourselves: “Why do none of our ideas seem to work?” If overpopulation is a fact that we have no choice but to accept, surely it could help us to finally come to terms with our current failures and begin to collectively find a way to embrace the ultimatum — adapt or suffer. Of course, societal change is a promising and leading prospect in helping our species to slowly grow used to the severity of problems caused by overpopulation and in turn find effective and immediate solutions. However, one thing we’ve learned from our history is that humanity hates changes away from the norms that we’ve already grown accustomed to. For instance, climate change has been a serious concern for half a century, yet our fossil fuel usage by volume has continued to increase. This answers our previous question; none of our ideas work because not enough people want to embrace change — in essence, nobody really acknowledges overpopulation as a significant problem. So, are we doomed to extinction by our own success in procreation? If societal change is impossible, then our best remedy to combat population directly also becomes impossible in turn. Thus, we have no option but to accept overpopulation, not as a problem but as a fact and cope. Humanity will never be able to accept such a fact overnight, instead we must individually and consciously recognize it to, in turn, live with it.

The core problem of dealing with overpopulation by directly manipulating population size is that different demographics around the world face different issues, with countries like India having an ever-increasing rate of growth while countries like Korea and Japan are on the decline. Thus, it’s impossible to find a be-all and end-all solution to tackle the root cause. If instead, we dedicated our resources to more pressing immediate issues, such as increasing the comfort of our lives in a sustainable way, and realize that the issues we attribute to overpopulation are just magnifications of our current bad habits, we’d best be able to deal with the issue in a more productive manner.