I already wrote about what our world will become like (here) as a result of global warming. Here are some more thoughts, to make the picture clearer.

The population of our planet has already passed the 7 billion mark. As I hope you already understand, the root cause of global warming, as with almost every pollution problem, is that there are too many people on this planet. Experts have stated that they expect the population to reach a plateau of around 9 billion; you might wonder about the basis of this estimate.

Population pressure causes shortages of food and water; it decreases food quality and safety: it increases the incidence of disease and the rate at which new diseases evolve; it increases the incidence of wars; it increases the number of migrants and refugees; and it causes financial instability. None of these conclusions should come as any surprise: these are all problems that we have already, and the highest incidence of them is mostly correlated with areas where population most heavily exceeds the ability of the natural world, and our infrastructure, to support the population (i.e. not always places where absolute population density is highest, but places which simply cannot support the population levels - like Africa, parts of the Middle East, China, etc.).

The estimate of 9 billion people is based on the limitations on our ability and willingness to breed, caused by the side-effects of those population levels. This is not a firm figure, but only an estimate, based on many assumptions. So, the question that you should now be asking yourself is, how much deterioration in your heath, financial well-being, and general quality of life will be enough to prevent you from producing excessive numbers of children?

Of course, the problem with these assumptions is that people have various different motives for having offspring: cultural and religious, financial, etc. These motives are impacted differently by the pressures that I have described above: some people will choose to have more children if they believe that their chances of survival are reduced, thus exacerbating the reduction of health and quality of life for all of us.

Personally, I think that things will need to get much worse than the experts are assuming before Earth's population stabilises. Is that world the kind of place where you want to live, and where you want your children to grow up? If not, then maybe it is time to rethink your system of beliefs.