Captain Kirk has already confronted this problem in a Star Trek episode.
http://homepage.mac.com/m5comp/trekb...eon/index.html
Seriously though, aren't we looking at global population trends peaking out at roughly 11.5 billion in about 50 years?
Japan this year is the first major economic power to see its population begin to reverse. Japan's population is now in decline.
Europe will have a dramatic population decline in the next 50 years, about one-third.
China is about to have a major demographic shift and a significant population decline . . . .
But the mega-cities of today are going to rocket in population in third world places.
I wouldn't be surprised if you see more countries begin to erect, as Saudi is going to do on its Iraq border, as Israel has done to the Palestinians, physical barriers on borders stretching hundreds of miles . . . . to keep the poor, disenfranchised or refugees from conflict out.
Cowperson