“Can you think of any problem [...] of human endeavour [...] whose long-term solution is [...] assisted [...] by further increases in population locally, nationally or globally?” 

This is an amazing statement to those who have made it a habit to study history in any significant way. Because its answer seems a glaring “yes, most definitely, in practically every conceivable instance.” With the possible exception of an instance wherein a large population is under a great degree of repression and control, as is the case in China. Such regimes ultimately undergo rapidly dwindling population, such as in the former Soviet Empire whether they engage in wholesale slaughter or not–as in the case of Europe, having to offer remuneration to couples to have adequate numbers of children.

Such regimes are in the business of removing impetus, and as history also shows us, it takes very little such removal to cause the rest of it to dwindle to nothing. It appears that once this process has begun it is, unfortunately, not reversible excepting the instance wherein–as history also shows–a very high price is paid for such a reversal. Most of that price has traditionally been paid in blood; and I am quite afraid, unless somehow the advent of technology has had some heuristic effect upon the way in which human beings interact in a crisis–which we may pray it has–that such continues to be the only currency in which the price for any such reversal in the future.must be paid.

Although I do hope that somehow this is not so.