> If society took the wealth of a few billionaires and distributed it to the most impoverished I think a lot of our overpopulation woes would vanish overnight.

Maybe, maybe not. Most of impoverished people I know are impoverished because they continue to act irresponsibly with money. Just giving them money without education, handholding and a lot of coaching about how to spend money will mean that money will be distrobuted back away into society and eventually the rich will return to being rich. Of course not everyone is like that, but I'd say 80%. By just redistributing wealth, after 5 years we would reduce amount of poor people by 20%. That's why it's so hard to fight poorness. They require a lot more than just money.

People always look for the one size fits all solutions and or reasons for problems. There are multiple reasons for shitty conditions just as there are multiple reasons for homelessness. That is why these problems seem so intractable IMHO. I seriously doubt cramming another billion or so people onto the planet is going to improve those conditions. At least I have not read a convincing argument for it.

I think people totally underestimate how the current 9 Billion inhabitants of this planet are depleting our oceans of living things and how large a percentage of those inhabitants depend upon the ocean for food. Sounds like one of those externalities Economist only account for after the fact. Ooops - To bad for you starving children in (put your starving country here).