What I mean is not "physical room for people," it's "exploited versus un-exploited resources." It's not as if we're running out of room for farming -- and even if we were, it's not as if we're managing the oceans in anything that vaguely resembles a serious, competent fashion. Earth is much larger than we tend to think, and much more empty (remember how if the population of the Netherlands lived at New York density, everyone in the country would fit in the "dongle" of southern Limburg that borders on Belgium). In other words, we can afford to worry about more urgent things -- torture, for example. (Not just American; how about the Uzbek dictator who boils prisoners alive, or of course the Chinese?)

Additionally, there may be a difference in my values relative to yours: I believe that people are intrinsically valuable, and that therefore it is better to have more people in the world than fewer people in the world, all other things being equal.

But why should all the resources be exploited? Why not, you know, just use what we need? And why should the people in the Netherlands live at the same density that people in NYC do anymore than vice versa? I don't see what 'value' people have over anything else, say, fish, deer or even trees, mountains, etc -- I say we leave some room for the other things that occupy the earth and not just claim it all for ourselves because we can.

Then here we part company: as a Roman Catholic, I believe that human beings come first -- although we are to be stewards of the earth rather than masters of it.