Yes, we ARE overpopulated. The cultural denial of this obvious state of affairs is the #1 cornerstone of our doomed path.
It's not a matter of food production - we are quite capable of growing more food. It's not a matter of living space - we have plenty.
Even resources are not the central issue, nor is CO2, or anything climate-related.
The biggest, most wide-spread, and insolvable problems are those of the human mind itself.
We simply are not designed for this. We, as a species, simply cannot adapt fast enough either culturally or physically. We are rapidly going insane, and the afore-mentioned denial of overpopulation should be a red alert.
The central problem? We have convinced ourselves that we can have endless growth. We have taught people to expect a better, brighter future, even as everything we have built is now rotting away faster than we can build, repair, or replace it.
That rot is everywhere, slowing growth and economic activity, keeping the poor from any realistic hope of redemption, fostering an ever-increasing global blame-game over the distribution of goods and services.
Everyone KNOWS this, but they deny the central issue (growth itself) and simply advocate local patchwork fixes. Each patch causes MORE social rot as those who didn't get their problems patched feel discriminated against (and they ARE, of course).
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Meanwhile, human growth is busy wiping out the last of the remaining fertile wilderness areas from 40 degrees North to 40 degrees S, where most humans prefer to live. In those regions, 98% of ALL mammalian biomass is composed of humans and their pets and livestock. The zones from 40-60 degrees aren't much better, but at least contain massive forests that are not currently threatened.
Yes, global population growth is ending, but it's too late. We have passed the limits of both our physical and social supply chains, and our institutions have (quite rightly) lost the trust of the population. The 1st world nations are rapidly converting themselves into welfare camps, where 2/3 of the population is either doing meaningless, dead-end work or is existing on some kind of social aid program - and that 2/3 is growing every year, as any work that can demand higher pay is being replaced by AI and automation.
Everyone is looking at the top 5% of humanity - those who are zooming forward faster than ever before, and ignoring the condition of themselves and those around them. Everyone is being scammed, right now, into putting out all their money and effort to catch a place on that elite ride. And every failure just pushes the dream that much further out of reach for all of them, while those already in the elite group feast on the remains of the dreamer's attempts.
Don't get me wrong - trying for that dream is the only hope most of us have for a future. But that future, even if it manifests, is a dystopian nightmare. The only other option is global economic collapse leading to global warfare. Not a fun choice - an authoritarian dystopia ruled by the wealthy, with everyone else "cared for" at a minimal level, with no hope of escape (AI monitoring will make sure of that). Or the challenge of living in a destroyed world and trying to build something new and better from scraps of technology and a mostly broken population of survivors - as the elite emerge from their bunkers and try to re-claim their ownership of everything.