Oh, the Humanity: Is the Threat of Overpopulation Still a Big Deal?:

           

 Overpopulation of the Earth in decades to come may not be as inevitable as once thought. Gigantic population crashes from depleted food sources are not seen as mankind’s future anymore. Many scientists now believe that human population by 2100 will, at its lowest, only be 6.2 billion people, with 15.8 billion at its highest. The United Nations predicts human population will reach carrying capacity in only a few decades and even start to decline. These beliefs have come from the theories that once developing countries’ living conditions improve and birth rates lower, the numbers will not rise as drastically, and, eventually, human population will decline. By 2300, scientists from International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis suspect that the future population will only be one-seventh of what it is now. The general consensus is that, with lowering birth rates, human population will not continue to grow exponentially, but will rather decline. I believe that these findings ease the minds of many. A large portion of the informed populace believed that the human population would deplete all resources and die. This study will help out population control theorists in the future and console the minds of many.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-overpopulation-still-an-issue-of-concern