Procreation Without End

I haven't come across many people, on the street or online, who believe that unceasing population growth is a good thing for the planet, but Michael over at 2 Blowhards evidently has, and he's written a funny post about it:

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of people who applaud and advocate population-growth-without-end. What kind of future do they envision, after all? Colonizing outer space perhaps? OK, let's see ... Rocket ships transporting people to Mars ... Hmmm. With world population going up 80 million every year ... If we were able to launch 300 people per rocket ... Carry the three .... OK, if I'm dividing right -- and please doublecheck me here -- it would take something like 250,000 launchings a year -- or around 750 successful rocket launches per day -- to rid the earth of just one year's worth of extra people. That scenario seems to me a wee bit farfetched. Call me a cultural pessimist, I don't care.

I find really dense populations exhausting and endlessly irritating myself. You might think someone like that wouldn't live in New York, but here I am.