Brendan O’Neill makes some good contrarian points about overpopulation and hand-wringing Malthusians in this article on Spiked, though I think he goes too far.

The article begins: “In the year 200 AD, there were approximately 180 million human beings on the planet Earth. And at that time a Christian philosopher called Tertullian argued: ‘We are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate for us… already nature does not sustain us.’ In other words, there were too many people for the planet to cope with and we were bleeding Mother Nature dry.

Well, today, nearly 180 million people live in the Eastern Half of the United States alone, in the 26 states that lie to the east of the Mississippi River. And far from facing hunger or destitution, many of these people – especially the 1.7 million who live on the tiny island of Manhattan – have quite nice lives.”

Yes, the human resources that come from billions of people have enabled many of us to live well. But there are also masses of poor people around the world existing in dire conditions. While the reasons for that have more to do with politics than numbers, the numbers don’t necessarily help in the short term. O’Neill is so sanguine about the long-term benefits of huge population that he tends to gloss over the short-term suffering. Nonetheless, it’s an impressive piece.