Source: The Overpopulation Project (2020) Is overpopulation a dirty word? Too many people consuming too much
Preface. Without fossil fuels, the carrying capacity of the planet would be around 300 million people. Fossil fuels made it possible for human population to grow 27-fold to 8.2 billion people since coal production began the Industrial Revolution.
World crude oil production is likely to peak between 2030 and 2032. Already most new oil is obtained from deep offshore, surely a sign of desperation since these projects cost billions of dollars and take years to construct.
The carrying capacity of the United States without fossil fuels is about 100 million people (Professors David Pimentel at Cornell, Paul Erlich at Stanford). You can figure this out for yourself. In the Great Depression, when oil production was just starting to ramp up, there were about 100 million people, 25% of them farmers so most people had relatives that grew food they could retreat to if all else failed. Society had fossil fuels and coal powered factories, ships and rail. Yet people went hungry and starved.
Now only 1% of people are farmers in the U.S., using diesel powered farm vehicles and equipment. They have no clue how to farm without diesel, or natural gas based fertilizers and petroleum pesticides so toxic they are causing an insect and biodiversity crisis. And a quarter of greenhouse emissions. Aquifers are depleting fast and now are pumped up from hundreds of feet below, far deeper than a hand pump could manage. The topsoil has eroded away but can still grow crops with tons of fertilizer and toxic pesticides. Most farms are thousands of acres, with crops quickly delivered all over the world using diesel-powered trucks, rail, and ships. I doubt that the carrying capacity is as high as 100 million any more once diesel declines until it is gone for good.
Despite all the vast coverage of Trump’s ICE deporting immigrants, there are still 2.1 million legal foreign workers in the USA. Population will also grow from all the unwanted babies now that abortion is less available and soon contraception now that Medicaid doesn’t cover it and has forced women’s health clinics to fold.
Below is a summary of an article on the current status of immigration and the need for reform.
As far as H-1B visas go, when I worked for American President Lines they were among the first companies to take advantage of this in 1990. While these workers may have initially earned lower wages in my Information Technology department, by the time I left, many of them were earning more — kickbacks perhaps? By then, many employees had been outsourced. When I called them about a problem (most involved more than one type of software), they claimed it was not THEIR problem, even though it was an emergency, and I don’t know how others dealt with this, but I could usually get them to help, and other groups gave up and hired more people. After that it took time and money for the lawyers to sort out what the contract said. It usually WAS the outsourcers problem. Not doing work is an easy way to earn money, downright piracy if you ask me, just like insurance companies that take your premiums but delay, deny, and defend their lack of paying your claims. As did our insurance after our house burned down.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Financial Sense, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts
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Lynn K (2025) Beyond Border Security: Why “Net Zero” Immigration Requires Legal Immigration Limits. Institute for Public Policy
Recent headlines suggesting the United States is approaching “net zero migration” ignore a key source of permanent migration: temporary legal work permit programs.
Real Reform Requires Legal Work Program Limits
Meaningful immigration reform must go beyond border security and deportations to address legal immigration’s scale and structure. The current system admits over one million legal permanent residents annually, plus 1.1 million temporary visa workers per year. This volume overwhelms labor markets in specific sectors and suppresses wages across skill levels.
Consider the total number of foreigners in the country on employment visas alone in 2024:
659,305 H-1B workers in specialized occupations in 2024
482,560 foreign students and graduates on work authorization programs in 2024
387,397 L-1 intra-company transferees in 2019
470,000 seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural workers
150,000 H-4 visa dependent spouses with work authorization in 2024
Achieving genuine net zero migration would require dramatic reductions across these categories—reductions that would immediately benefit American workers through reduced labor competition and upward wage pressure.
The Benefits for American Workers
Restricting legal immigration would produce several immediate benefits for American workers:
Wage Growth: Reduced labor supply would force employers to compete for workers through higher wages, particularly benefiting entry-level and mid-skilled positions that face direct immigrant competition.
Investment in Training: Labor shortages would incentivize employers to invest in training American workers rather than importing foreign alternatives. This would particularly benefit younger Americans and those seeking career changes.
Automation and Productivity: Genuine labor scarcity would accelerate business investment in productivity-enhancing technology, ultimately strengthening American competitiveness.
Reduced Credential Inflation: With fewer foreign workers holding advanced degrees, employers might focus more on skills and experience rather than educational credentials, opening opportunities for Americans without college degrees.
With over 2.1 million foreign workers currently in the United States on various employment visas alone, plus family-based and employment-based immigration (1.2 million new green cards granted in 2023), refugee admissions, and the diversity lottery, legal immigration now dwarfs illegal border crossings. Any serious discussion of immigration reform cannot ignore this reality.
Consider the STEM workforce, often cited as a reason for immigration necessity. Industry advocates routinely warn of dire shortages requiring H-1B visas, STEM OPT programs, and other employment-based immigration to fill critical gaps. Yet the data reveals a starkly different picture. American computer science graduates have stagnant salaries and high unemployment, which is a clear indication that the domestic supply of qualified workers exceeds demand. If genuine shortages existed, we would expect to see rapidly rising wages and fierce competition for American STEM graduates. Instead, many find themselves working outside their fields of study while companies import foreign workers on visas.
The H-1B program exemplifies this dynamic, with 659,305 foreign workers currently in the country on those visas. Additionally, there are 482,560 foreigners on various student work programs (OPT, STEM OPT, and CPT), which has grown 129% in the past decade. In total, we’re looking at over 1.1 million foreign workers concentrated in supposedly STEM “shortage” occupations. Yet wage data shows no evidence of the dramatic salary increases that genuine scarcity would produce. H-1B program is a wage-suppression mechanisms.
Agricultural and seasonal labor present similar contradictions. The H-2A (for agricultural work) and H-2B programs (for non-agricultural, temporary, seasonal work), covering 442,341 workers, are justified by claims that Americans won’t perform farm or seasonal work. Yet this assertion ignores basic economic principles. Americans have historically performed seasonal labor when wages and working conditions made it economically attractive. The current situation reflects not American unwillingness to work, but employer unwillingness to pay competitive wages and provide decent working conditions when cheaper foreign alternatives exist.