Interesting topic. A few of my more-or-less random thoughts:
- Right now we have a (relatively) small group of people with very high consumption, while the rest of the world lives in comparative poverty. Personally I like having my house, car, luxuries, and all the other trappings of life in Canada and would resist giving any of it up. As a compassionate human being I'd also like all of those other people to be able to have a lifestyle like mine. However, with current technology, there's no way this planet could support that lifestyle for every human on the planet.
- The list posted by Burninator has good ideas for how to get countries to develop, but still doesn't answer the question of what to do about current overpopulation in some countries (overpopulation isn't universal but rather limited to specific regions and countries). I think significant scientific/technological advances would also be needed in many cases, including things like genetically designed high yield crops and new or improved energy production technologies.
- I think a "one child per female" policy would have devastating economic and social effects down the road due to its effects on population age structure. At the very least it would force people to stay in the workforce much longer, which would require significant improvements in the health of the population. A "two child per female" policy would be better; still resulting in a small population decline over time due to not every female having two children, but not quite as severe an effect.
- How much responsibility do western nations have for the rest of the world? Is the state of third world countries partly our "fault" (colonialism, exploitation), or would they be worse off or in a similar state if they'd been left to their own devices (I suspect the latter in many cases, but don't really know)? Do we have a moral obligation to make sacrifices to our standard of life to help other countries improve theirs?
- I think developing countries may have a point when they resist things like greenhouse gas emission targets or banning certain chemicals when the developed nations didn't have to worry about those things when they were at that stage; if we want them to go without advantages that we had, we might have to help them out (economically and/or by giving them technology).
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