It's a real pity that this topic is not more spoken about in positive terms.  While decreasing population may hurt in some places, it must be a positive in others.  Surely Paul Ehrlich could not have been all wrong.

Population increase is often seen by economically-driven politicians as synonymous with economic growth.  Populate or perish?

So glad to see this being discussed. I'm amazed at how many environmentally-minded people I know can agree in the abstract that overpopulation is the root of just about every environmental problem we're facing, but won't apply it personally.  Or they use the logic that since they're a couple, it's ok to have 2 kids, because it keeps the number neutral - doesn't that assume that we are currently at a desirable population level, and not long past it?

My wife and I love kids, and have many children in our lives  through our friends, but neither of us feel any real desire to reproduce. So why do I often get the feeling that when we tell people that, there's this underlying assumption that its really me, as the "male" that doesn't want kids and my wife is just aquiescing? She feels just as strongly about it as I do! Environmental issues aside, we also consider the impact it would have on our lives, and we see friends who have no free time, look exhausted all the time, can't just spontaneously go out to a movie or dinner, and we know that its not for us - we enjoy our free time, and the lack of pressure of having to make "x" amount of salary to start saving forr universities, etc.

I've actually heard people say its "selfish" not to reproduce, and to value your own time and energy over having children - what's more selfish than acknowledging overpopulation is a serious issue, but you're going to have kids anyway?

I'm a 44 year old married female, and I long ago decided not to have kids.  (My husband has a grown daughter from his first marriage and was fine with not having any more.)  At the time it wasn't because I was an environmentalist (I wasn't until a few years ago), but because I just don't like kids.  That's a radical thing to say in this world, and certainly in this country.  I must have been born without the "mommy gene," because I have never felt the urge to have a baby.  I have several female friends around my age who feel the same way, and they chose not to have children either.  All are well educated and have satisfying careers.  We whisper among ourselves that we are glad we don't have kids; we all have friends who do, and they are exhausted, have no time for themselves, and are financially strapped due to the huge cost of raising kids and trying to save for college.

I don't understand why so many people who do want kids have two, three, even four or more children.  What's wrong with having just one, which would ease the burdens on working parents and allow many of them to save both for college and for their own retirement?

I often feel like a "female mutant" for feeling this way, because it is definitely not the norm.  But since becoming an environmentalist several years ago, I have another reason to be glad that I'm childless.

This is a terrific article. It's surprisingly moving and really thought-provoking. I really enjoyed reading it.

What are we, people who do want children but are social-responsibility-minded, to do? It is a real dilemma, and it isn't being discussed.

    One of the reasons that population is not discussed more often is that it usually is spoken of in terms of numbers.  However, it's not just how many children one has, but how they  (and you) live.  The deeper issue is consumption.  Someone who builds a huge mansion but has no children has a more negative effect on the planet than a peasant family with five children.  The real problem in the developed countries is not just how many people there are, but the way we all live.
     While population needs to stabilize and trend downward, more importantly the consumption practices of the West need to be addressed.  The houses full of unused stuff, the three cars per family, the suburban lifestyle especially (though not only) are what is killing the planet.
     A stable society with good social welfare programs, education and empowerment for women seem to "solve" the numbers part of the population issue.  The consumption part is even less likely to be seriously discussed.

Great articles! A colleague at VHEMT.org shared this with the discussion group today. Just wanted to throw out a little more brain candy on this subject in the form of a few quotes:

"The road to the future leads us smack into the wall and we simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. The wall is a demographic explosion that triggers social chaos and spreads death, nuclear delirium and the quasi-annihilation of the species... Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years."     -Jacques Cousteau (1910 - 1997)

"The prevailing view holds that a stable population that does not tax the environment's "carrying capacity" would be sustainable indefinitely, and that this state of equilibrium can be achieved through a combination of birth control, conservation, and reliance on "renewable" resources. Unfortunately, worldwide implementation of a rigorous program of birth control is politically impossible. Conservation is futile as long as population continues to rise. And no resources are truly renewable."     -"Energy and Human Evolution" by David Price

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive."     -Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of Arrakis

"There not need be any more people in the world than one can get to know in a lifetime." - Unknown

"I question whether technological growth can keep us ahead of the consumption wolf pack. Particularly if we're trying to export a consumption-based economy to the whole world. At some point we need to say enough is enough."  -Kurt Yeager, president and CEO of the industry-funded Electrical Power Research Institute

"You're not actually mammals. Every mammal on the planet naturally develops equilibrium with their surrounding environment. You humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern, a virus. You're a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague and we are the cure."    - The Matrix (Film)

"Relief for hungry children is nothing but a symptom of accelerated ignorance, unaware of how a world forecloses on invading circumstance." - Roy Harper's "Ghost Dance"

While I enjoy, agree with and am often entertained by most everything I read in Grist, "Going Down" left me thinking, "huh?" The author takes an extraordinary amount of space to not present anything really all that worrisome.

What exactly are the conerns here? That we may someday have a lot of immigrants in European countries working in low wage jobs?!? While not an ideal situation, is it all that different than the present one? And this seems like a deep-seated social issue, not one caused by depopulation. And clearly, "depopulation isn't really what's happening -  it's just population shift. To be honest, after years of colonial pillaging, I have little sympathy for countries like France that now have to deal with integrating people from the countries they robbed from for so many years. It is a serious issue, and one for which I see no easy solutions, but it really has little to do with "depopulation."

And what were the other issues to be concerned about here? That all those folks collecting pension plans will drain monetary resources from "green projects?" Please - a fraction of many countries' bloated military budgets could bridge the gap in a heartbeat. The issue isn't there isn't a result of people collecting pensions as much as it is the western military-industrial complex having warped priorities.

As the Mr. Wendling admits, the world's population is still growing, regardless.  And the effects of that far outweigh whatever miniscule and over-dramatized impacts may be felt from declining populations in some limited areas. Frankly, with real issues worthy of serious concern, whether or not the aging population of some small town in northern England can find suitable young people to mate with and do their work for them is pretty low on my list. Yawn....

I'm glad this has generated such debate - the causes and effects of population changes are amazingly complex.  The time scales we're dealing with are almost too long to comprehend, the variables are many, and the statistical analysis can be extraordinarily detailed.  In fact I'm a bit out of breath.
At the same time, however, population is tied to very personal choice - i.e. whether or not to have children - a difficult issue that John Kurmann handled brilliantly.
One thing I touched on briefly in my article was the impact on  public policy.  As a completely unscientific and, um, somewhat flippant survey, I did a bit more research over the weekend, into how many children a select few world leaders have spawned:

-Blair: 4
-Bush: 2
-Angela Merkel: 0
-Junichiro Koizumi: 3
-Jacques Chirac: 2
-Hu Jintao: 2
-Vladimir Putin: 2
-Silvio Berlusconi: 5
-Manmohan Singh: 3
-Kofi Annan: 3

So, like the larger topic - some surprises, few simple conclusions!  I'm convinced though that we have to resume seriously thinking about population and how many of us can fit on the planet - despite the problems I outlined, the environmental benefits of a falling population could be tremendous.

so many things ....

 Id love to have a child! somehow having all this machinery and not using it is just the most frustrating idea. Then theres what is called 'instinct',or what i've started to think of as conditioning, society expects that every woman would have the instinct to give birth to a child, and you accept it, and after a bit its so ingrained in you its almost biological.
  There is the instinct to care for children, and anyone whose had a brother(s) or sister(s) knows its one of the best things in the world (usually). I do,I think more than one child is a great idea.
 Then theres the age old pattern, babies need parents to take care of them, especially ones that love them. Old people, invalids need young people to care for them, especially young people who love them. That is a very important function of a 'family'. old age homes just do not compare.

so its quite clear people need parents, and people need children . . . But its perfectly clear that this genetic instinct for survival is actually responsible for bringing us closer to extinction !
I think the saving grace is that there are plenty of children out there that, unfortunately, do not have any parents. Of course they may not mirror your features, but they will follow your example, they might mimic your expressions , and adopt your walk, or the way you talk, and most importanly your values as much as any biological child would.
I like to think that if some of us have been given the insight to realise that bringing a child into the world is no longer as logical or wonderful as it used to be-for the parent or the child, we must value life-and that would make us more able to accept as our own somthing that has not necessariliy come from within us.

The best part of parenting has nothing to do with the genepool.  In this case, you CAN have your cake and eat it too.

I'm single, and found myself craving parenthood, too.  So - I adopted a baby boy from Russia.  Ohhh, he's the love of my life.  It's the hardest thing I've ever done, and the best thing I've ever done, and I can't believe how happy I am.  Yes, I too was a career overachiever, but now it's just a job.  I can go back with gusto someday if I want to, but for now, I'm singing nursery rhymes and making snowmen.  And I can't believe that I'm actually enjoying it!

There are tens of thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands of wonderful kids wasting away in orphanages just waiting for a family.  When my little 3 year old gives me a hug and says "I wub woo", the genes don't matter.