After reading this on BoingBoing, it occurred to me that I know nothing about the apparent depopulation problem. So, me and Google went on a little research trip. Once I waded through all of the end-of-timers and conspiracy theorists, I managed to find this well-cited article on the subject:
The population pyramid is reversing. Populations are declining, especially in rich nations. Populations are like supertankers, it takes forever to turn them around, but when they do, the changes are dramatic. Europeans have not noticed the population decline because of immigration, high fertility in the past and declines in mortality, but in reality birth rates are plunging in reverse.
From this page, I found a stat that sums things up nicely: the total fertility rate in the more developed countries is a mere 1.5, compared with 3.1 in the less developed countries. Here’s a BBC article which discusses the situation in eastern Europe, probably one of the first small crafts to get sunk when that supertanker turns around.
It’s an interesting turn of events, as I can remember being taught about the threat of overpopulation in Grade 12. I’m not particularly worried about the human race, though–the Earth would be a much nicer place without us. But then, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (thanks, Becky) is starting to really appeal to me.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I’d say that overpopulation is still a real threat. The rich countries, i.e. North America and Europe, were never the greatest threat – it’s always been the poor countries. China has a billion people, India has a billion people. Brazil is undergoing a population explosion – the largest population segment right now is 15-19 year olds.
My personal wish is for the Catholic church to pull their heads out of their asses and give the OK to condoms. This would greatly help out with both the population problem in developing countries and the HIV pandemic in Africa.
China and India do have a billion people each, but they’re population growth is declining. Modernization brings lower birth rates. See the following articles:
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_1.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1246731.stm
http://www.bohra.net/archive/india.html
http://www.aegis.com/news/afp/2003/AF030766.html
The same, as it turns out, appears to be true for Brazil: http://www.brazil.org.uk/page.php?cid=163&offset=1.
We’re still being taught in college that overpopulation is the biggest problem humanity is facing. Interesting that my profs might be wrong.
Overpopulation is still a problem, even though the U.N now expects the world population to level out at around 9 billion. But of far more concern is how much that population consumes.
Of our six billion individuals on this planet, the richest 20% are doing 80% of the damage. The greatest population growth is happening in the poorer nations, however, and those nations are industrializing without our help. China, India and Brazil might be up to our level of prosperity and consumption within the next 20-30 years.
So, instead of our pressure on the environment increasing by 50% thanks to three billion more humans, our pressure on the environment could increase by 100%, 200% or more as more countries join the industrialized, consumerized elite. If 20% of the population is doing 80% of the damage, imagine the damage that could be done if 40% of the population acts the way we do now.
There is no way to prevent this from happening unless the 20% now launch themselves into conservation. The leading front of the developing world wants what we’ve got, and we have no moral authority to deny it to them. So the example that we show to the developing world must be one that is both desireable, but which does less damage to our world.