Over the past two centuries Earth’s human population has doubled, and doubled again, and nearly doubled yet again, increasing from 1 billion to 7.7 billion people. This huge increase is at the root of grave global environmental problems, from climate change to mass species extinction. Yet in recent years, discussing population issues has become taboo among many environmentalists and policymakers. The Overpopulation Project aims to end the silence, by researching the environmental impacts of overpopulation, exploring humane policies to end population growth around the world, and fostering public and scholarly discussion of these issues.  With help from a generous grant from the Global Challenges Foundation, for the past two years my colleagues Frank Götmark, Jenna Dodson, Patrícia Dérer and I have examined the environmental impacts of overpopulation and reported on best practices for ending population growth around the world. Here are some of our scholarly publications: * Policy-based Population Projections for the European Union: A Complementary Approach. P. Cafaro and P. Dérer. Comparative Population Studies: in press. * How Should Ecological Citizens Think About Immigration? P. Cafaro, and J. O’Sullivan. Ecological Citizen 3: 85-92. * Aging Human Populations: Good for Us, Good for the Earth. F. Götmark, P. Cafaro and J. O’Sullivan. 2018. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 33: 851-862. * New Policy-based Population Projections for the European Union, with a Consideration of their Environmental Implications. P. Cafaro and P. Dérer. 2018. Working paper. The Overpopulation Project, Göteborg, Sweden. Appendix 1: Complete Projections. And here are some of our most popular blog posts from this past year: * Overpopulation threatens the world’s food supply, United Nations warns. August 15, 2019 * World Population Prospects 2019 – good news or bad? June 26, 2019 * Solutions to overpopulation and what you can do. February 22, 2019 * WWF Living Planet Report 2018 – “aiming higher”, but not on target. November 13, 2018 The Global Challenges Foundation was founded in 2012 by Swedish financial analyst and author Laszlo Szombatfalvy. The Foundation’s aim is to contribute to reducing the main global problems and risks that threaten humanity, particularly climate change, degradation of global ecological systems, politically motivated violence, extreme poverty and population growth. We appreciate their support!
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