Corollary:

1) If poverty triggers overpopulation the solution is to eliminate poverty, not to eliminate populations. Latin America experienced a good decade and it's population growth slowed down (don't remember the source).

2) Remember that survival is not only affected by wealth (food); there are plagues, environmental factors (such as UV light), ability to handle stress, and many other factors that act as a survival test.

3) On social engineering: we have been unable to stop wars, which is rather easy in concept. How can we pretend stopping predatory actions on the environment? The pretended most advanced nations are behind most the destruction: US, EU, Japan, China, etc. (oh, you didn't know that China is advanced? The have been organized politically over 4000 years, about 20 times longer than the US, 4 times longer than Russia. The Romans didn't make it)

On global warming: is probably too late to do anything. I read that a consequence of warming (whether is cyclical or human induced) is that the Gulf Stream will go away, freezing up the norther hemisphere. How paradoxical. Buy land in the Sahara, chances are the rain will go there.