Recently in the news are
reports of a study by Mathis Wackernagel that states that humanity has exceeded the carrying capacity of the biosphere. Reason has a
rebuttal showing the impact of technology over time on the efficiency of the use of natural resources. The rebuttal points out both that in the fully industrialized nations, forest are re-growing as moderate to poor farm land is phased out (no thanks to the Bush administration farm bill) based on far more efficient production. It then goes on to show that much of the "problem" is actually based on the assumption that carbon dioxide release is a major cause of global warming, etc.
The conclusion is that most botanists see technology in the form of a bulldozer and not in the form of efficiency. In a nice parallel to the post below, what is happening in the economy is directly seen in the economy's impact on the environment.
Update: A related
article in the Spectator which raises the real risk of an ice age and queries that increased CO
2 may be warding it off.
Update II: H.D. Miller has a
wonderful fisking of all the Malthusian predictions.