Overpopulation What does it man to be overpopulated? To some it means living in a world with more than 1 billion people. By that standard, we would have been overpopulated in the mid 19th century. Overpopulation should be defined as a situation where it is impossible to provide everyone on the earth a standard of living that is at a normal level. Most people don't think that a population growth of 1 or 2 percent a year is a big deal, well small percentages add up very quickly. The current population of the world today is 5.7 billion, with an annual growth rate of 1.5%. At this rate, 88 million people will be added to the population this y