Well, first off, China's population is starting to decrease due to the long running one child policy. So now they allow you to have up to 3 kids. However, they say the decrease might be irreversible.
Second, Europe's population is decreasing.
Third, even ours is decreasing except for all the immigrants, legal and illegal.
Fourth, India's population is leveling off due to capitalism and more prosperity.
Long term I've read that factories may move to Africa, the next cheap labor market as they are still increasing in population. Latin America's labor costs are in between and higher than China's or Africa's. They also have to quit playing around with socialism/communism. In 1960 Venezuela had the 3rd largest economy in the western hemisphere behind the US and Canada. They had oil and minerals to mine and a capitalist economy. Anyway higher standard of living reduces the number of children people have.
So, we have not had the population bomb. It did increase, but so did food production to match. More food can be grown in greenhouses taking up less space than traditional farming. The Netherlands are the 3rd largest exporter of food in the world because of intensive greenhouse production of vegetables.
Going nuclear power world wide would cut fossil fuel needs, if fossil fuels is what they are worried about. Also, Exxon did a study and said all the gasoline in the US could be made from algae oil grown in greenhouses that would only cover an area the size of Rhode Island. From algae oil, they could refine it into gasoline and diesel. However it costs about $4-5 per gallon to produce. Just take the tax off until the costs come down. They have to recoup the cost of building the greenhouses. Both of these do not even include wind or solar power. Oh, and making algae oil takes CO2 out of the atmosphere, but puts it back in when it is burned, so it is carbon neutral.
There are lots of ways to increase food production as well as energy production to make a higher standard of living for all the world. Left alone without government interference, man has figured out how to overcome these things. In the 1800's steam ships and locomotives ran on wood. When wood became more scarce, they switched to coal. Later to more convenient diesel. Most navy ships now use nuclear power.
It seems all the news media wants to tell is bad news and weird news. There are a lot of good things still happening.
