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Overpopulation occurrs when an area is populated too heavily for the available resources and the capacity of the environment. When an area is overpopulated, its population cannot be maintained without destroying nonrenewable resources and without affecting the carrying capacity of the environment (the earth’s ability to support current and future inhabitants).

The U.S. is the only major industrialized country still growing, and we show no signs of stopping. The Census shows we grew by 13 percent between 1990 & 2000--and by 83 percent the last 50 years! You can see evidence of the problem all around you--vanishing open spaces, water and energy shortages, soil erosion, and air pollution, as well as overcrowded schools, urban sprawl, and traffic congestion.

At 292 million Americans, we’re already well over our carrying capacity, and Census projections say we could grow to over 400 million by 2050–that’s another 100 million people to feed, clothe, educate, and house.

Overpopulation is indeed a problem around the globe, but population issues must be solved at the national level, as global agreements are largely unenforceable and fail to recognize the unique history, customs, and challenges of each country.

From an environmental standpoint, U.S. overpopulation is far worse for the environment than overpopulation anywhere else, because of our inordinately high use of resources. And of course, we have the most power to effect change right here at home.

NPG has surveyed scientists over 30 years and asked: What’s the optimum population size before you start exceeding an area’s carrying capacity and harming the environment? The scientific consensus is that 150-200 million is the ideal population size for the U.S. That’s about the size of the U.S. 50 years ago.

Considering food production, the load that human activities are imposing on the biosphere, global warming, chemicals and pollution, labor and wages, issues of social equity, and the problems of crowding, disease, and misery, NPG believes that a world population size of two to three billion would be optimal.

People need more land than just the land they’re standing on–they need land for raising food, producing their oil and water, recreation and entertainment, shopping, transportation, waste handling, and much more. And overpopulation isn’t about how many people you can jam into a given area; it’s about what the optimum population size is before you start destroying resources and quality of life.

Although an increase of one percent may sound small, such a rate is monumental when talking about a population the size of the United States. A one percent increase means 2.9 million new people in a year and 29 million in a decade.

Population growth benefits business interests, since it means more development. But as an area becomes more populated, its infrastructure starts straining under the weight of all the new people who must be served. Police forces, roads, and schools no longer satisfy the demands of a growing population. Farmland and forests are sacrificed to strip malls and housing developments. And as more and more schools, sanitary systems, roads, libraries, and water services must be built, eventually growth no longer lowers the average cost of services, but instead raises it. When this point is reached, growth increases the tax burden on communities; the revenue brought in by new growth is outweighed by the costs it creates. Meanwhile, congestion increases, schools become more crowded, and pollution levels rise.

There is no denying that Social Security's viability requires some tough decisions. But adding scores of millions of new workers would at best postpone, not solve, the Social Security problem–and at an enormous cost in resource depletion and environmental damage. Rather, we should see the aging of America as an opportunity to begin transitioning to sustainability.

In order to produce the greater and greater quantities of food needed to satisfy an expanding population, our lands have been deforested and overgrazed and our soil eroded. And don’t forget the quality of life issues associated with population growth: more pollution, more sprawl, tighter housing markets, overcrowded schools, traffic congestion, and vanishing open spaces.

Three factors influence population: births, deaths, and migration. We can reduce population by lowering our fertility rate (the average number of children per woman) and reducing immigration. If almost all women had no more than two children, our fertility rate would drop to 1.5, because many women choose to have just one or none. Immigration levels are currently over one million a year–five times traditional averages–and should be returned to more traditional levels of 100,000 to 200,000 annually.

We believe people should be educated about how overpopulation affects the environment and everyone’s quality of life and have access to family planning, and then–on their own–make responsible family planning decisions.

We could achieve a smaller, more sustainable fertility rate through a combination of social leadership, non-coercive incentives to stop at one or two children (such as tax incentives), free access to family planning education and contraceptives to anyone who wants it, and education. Studies show that as education level goes up, fertility (particularly early fertility) goes down.

We believe that anyone who wants it should have access to family planning education and contraceptives. It's essential that we raise awareness about family planning and not allow taboos to prevent open discussion about issues so vital to our nation's health.

Despite technological advancements, human numbers will ultimately overwhelm our ecosystems. We will eventually run out of finite resources, such as space and water. Even the CIA has weighed in on the issue, predicting in its “Global Trends 2015” report that parts of the U.S. will experience water shortages by 2015. The report stated that water conservation, expanded use of desalinization, developing genetically modified crops that use less water or more saline water, and importing water “will not be sufficient to substantially change the outlook for water shortages in 2015.”

Increasing our population means increasing consumption. Every new person consumes resources, takes up space, and disposes of waste products. Even if we can reduce consumption by half, no progress can be achieved if we allow the population to double.

Rather than packing more and more people into more and more crowded areas, we need to tackle the problem at its source: an ever-growing population. When populations continue to expand, communities must find places to house, educate, and employ new residents and thus, even the best-intentioned smart growth efforts will eventually run up against population pressures.

From the earth’s perspective, population growth is particularly significant in the affluent U.S., where even the environmentally conscious have levels of consumption far exceeding the rest of the world. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes 25 percent of its resources. When immigrants come here, they adopt our lifestyle and ultimately have a far worse impact on the earth than they would have had in their home country.

Immigration levels today are far higher than traditional levels; in the mid 1950s, our immigration was less than one-third what it is today. Additionally, the U.S. today is a very different country than in years past. We’ve settled the last frontiers and open space is no longer a commodity. Further population growth now means diminishing farmlands and otherwise harming our environment.