See the essay by Commoner in the T.D. Goldfarb reference on the supplementary reading list given in class. (This list of supplementary readings is also found in the Study Guide to accompany our unit on human population [click on Study Guide to move there now].) In contrast to Hardin, Commoner argues that the root cause of our environmental problems is inappropriate technology, rather than too many people. He suggests that if we used resources more efficiently and cleanly, there wouldn't be problems even though there are some 5 billion of us. (Now, of course, some 6 billion....)
For a more extreme position on whether the human population size is a problem, see the discussion of J. Simon's perspective, in the following section. (If you are working systematically through this section on the history of human population growth, click ">>" box at bottom to move there now; "<<" box to move to preceding section, or "Contents" box to return to master directory for the BI301 web site.)