Overpopulation: What can we do?

Many countries of the world are currently experiencing problems caused by rapidly growing populations in urban areas, and both governments and individuals have a duty to find ways to overcome these problems.

Overpopulation can lead to overcrowding and poor quality housing in many large cities. Poorly heated or damp housing could cause significant health problems, resulting in illness, such as bronchitis or pneumonia. Another serious consequence of overcrowding is a rising crime rate as poor living conditions may lead young people in particular to take desperate measures and turn to crime or drugs.

In terms of solutions, I believe the government should be largely responsible. Firstly, it is vital that the state provides essential housing and healthcare for all its citizens. Secondly, setting up community projects to help foster more community spirit and help keep young people off the street is a good idea. For example, youth clubs or evening classes for teenagers would keep them occupied. Finally, more effective policing of inner city areas would also be beneficial.

Naturally, individuals should also try to address these problems. One way is to put pressure on the government to ensure they tackle the problems by, for instance, forming action groups to lobby the government and request intervention and adequate funding. They could also form Neighbourhood Watch areas to try and help reduce the high levels of crime.

Therefore, it is clear that the problems caused by overpopulation in urban areas are very serious. Yet if governments and individuals share a collective responsibility, then it may well become possible to offer some solutions.

Actions on the individual level

• Have fewer children! One is good, two is enough
• Consider adoption!
• Read, educate yourself about population issues
• Reduce your personal consumption: go vegan, limit flying, share your household with others,
• Educate your teenage child(ren) about sex and contraception early, without taboos
• Spread your knowledge and concern among your friends and family, raise awareness about overpopulation on social media
• Donate to family planning programs in your own or other countries – for example to International Planned Parenthood, FP2020 or another equally deserving organization
• Vote for politicians who acknowledge the detrimental impacts of population growth and propose political solutions

Actions on the community level

• Join local environmental groups, encouraging them to “connect the dots” between population and the environment and address population issues
• Write opinion pieces for local newspapers, contact local media sources requesting more reporting on population issues – create demand!
• Municipalities should set growth management boundaries, discouraging sprawl development on their fringes
• Towns and cities should purchase surrounding lands, or the development rights to such lands, in order to set them aside as nature preserves and open space
• City councils should pass resolutions accepting limits to growth, and directing their national governments to develop policies to stabilize or reduce national populations

Actions on the national level

In high fertility developing countries, governments should:

• Generously fund family planning programs
• Make modern contraception legal, free and available everywhere, even in remote areas
• Improve health care to reduce infant and child mortality
• Restrict child marriage and raise the legal age of marriage (minimum 18 years)
• Introduce obligatory education as long as possible (minimum until the age of 16), and generously fund the necessary infrastructure

In low fertility developed countries, governments should:

• Embrace rather than fight aging and shrinking societies – read more 
• Reorganize pensions and other socio-economic systems to accommodate aging societies
• Eliminate baby bonuses, government funding for fertility treatments, and other incentives to raise fertility rates
• Reduce immigration numbers (at least to a level that will stabilize national populations, preferably to one that will lower them)
• Reduce resource consumption and pollution through an effective mix of taxes, incentives and regulations

In every country, governments should:

• Empower women, assuring equal rights, treatment and opportunities for both genders
• Provide information and access to reproductive health care, including all types of low cost, safe, effective contraception
• Make sterilization free, for men and women, or at least covered under all healthcare plans
• Legalize abortion without restrictions or social stigma
• Integrate family planning and safe motherhood programs into primary health care systems
• Make population and environmental issues and sex education part of the basic educational curriculum
• Disincentivize third and further children non-coercively, by limiting government support to the first two children
• Create a national population policy built around an optimal population size, and work to achieve it
• Set aside half the national landscape free from intensive development and dedicated to biodiversity protection

Actions on the global level:

• Make “ending population growth” one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 
• Greatly increase the amount of foreign aid going to family planning
• Change the current foreign aid distribution, giving more support for health and education, while ending international military aid
• Global religious leaders should approve modern contraception methods and forcefully reject a fatalistic view of procreation
• Financially support media programs designed to change social norms to bolster family planning, best example is Population Media Center
• Hold a new global population conference, the first in twenty-five years, to reaffirm the ecological need to limit human numbers and the basic human right to family planning
• Connect family planning to international environmental and development funding; e.g., include family planning in the Green Climate Fund
• Create a new global treaty to end population growth, with all countries choosing population targets every half decade with a plan on how to achieve them (similar to the NDC format)
• Create an online platform similar to the ClimateWatch platform, where visitors can see countries’ goals, plans and achievements to date.