I certainly did not have Canada or USA in mind. Try Bangladesh for example. Based on statistics world currently is overpopulated by about 2 bil people. Here is just a few effects of overpopulation.
Some more problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation and over-consumption are:
The Yangtze River dolphin, Atlantic gray whale, West African black rhino, Merriam's elk, California grizzly bear, silver trout, blue pike and dusky seaside sparrow are all victims of human overpopulation.
- Inadequate fresh water for drinking as well as sewage treatment and effluent discharge. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, use energy-expensive desalination to solve the problem of water shortages.
- Depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels.
- Increased levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution.
- Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming.
- Loss of arable land and increase in desertification. Deforestation and desertification can be reversed by adopting property rights, and this policy is successful even while the human population continues to grow.
- Mass species extinctions and contracting biodiversity from reduced habitat in tropical forests due to slash-and-burn techniques that sometimes are practiced by shifting cultivators, especially in countries with rapidly expanding rural populations; present extinction rates may be as high as 140,000 species lost per year.As of February 2011, the IUCN Red List lists a total of 801 animal species having gone extinct during recorded human history, although the vast majority of extinctions are thought to be undocumented.Biodiversity would continue to grow at an exponential rate if not for human influence. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, told a parliamentary inquiry: "It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor."
—Chris Hedges,
- High infant and child mortality. High rates of infant mortality are associated with poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality.
- Intensive factory farming to support large populations. It results in human threats including the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria diseases, excessive air and water pollution, and new viruses that infect humans.
- Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics.For many environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions, malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care, the poor are more likely to be exposed to infectious diseases.
- Starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets). However, rich countries with high population densities do not have famine.
- Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated absolute poverty and keep their inflation rates very low.
- Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations.
- Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal. However, this problem can be reduced with the adoption of sewers. For example, after Karachi, Pakistan installed sewers, its infant mortality rate fell substantially.
- Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing resources to survive.
- Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare.
- Less personal freedom and more restrictive laws. Laws regulate and shape politics, economics, history and society and serve as a mediator of relations and interactions between people. The higher the population density, the more frequent such interactions become, and thus there develops a need for more laws and/or more restrictive laws to regulate these interactions and relations.
Right. The solution is for those countries to develop, not depopulate. Bangladesh with half the population just means half as many people would be living at the same level of poverty. Nature is brutal, and humans in a state of nature are equally brutal. Nothing is free for the taking. It's not like resources are present for free, and halving the population would double the amount of resources per remaining person. There are few accessible resources. The production of useful resources and the maintenance of the infrastructure are massive undertakings by tons of people. Having fewer people also means having fewer resources. Fewer scientists and engineers to come up with new ideas, fewer workers to make them happen, fewer educators to pass them on to the next generation, etc. And the relationship is not linear. The maintenance of a resource has a minimum number of people required. You can scale down the number of people in a copper mine at the expense of having less copper extracted, but only to a degree. You still need a minimum number to keep the operation going. So a smaller population means a larger percentage dedicated to keeping things operating, and fewer people available for other tasks. So having half as many people doesn't mean half as many resources. It's a lot less than that. I honestly can't think of a major advantage to having fewer people, except for pollution. But then again, medical outcomes would be far worse due to diminishing talent pool and resources, so it's doubtful the health outcomes for even that one aspect are positive.
And that's ignoring the fact that the immediate consequences would be the utter collapse of human civilization if the rapture happened suddenly. I am assuming that the remaining humans will eventually rebuild something more suitable to their circumstances. But it's a long hard road to a *****er world.