Who cares about overpopulation? Smart people and atheists

If you had the sense that Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin are very much figures of the 1970s nexus of environmentalism and population control, it seems you are right. According to Google Ngrams mention of these topics has been declining since peaking during the oil crisis, in the afterglow of the influence of the late 1960s counter-culture. The general social survey has a variable, POPGRWTH, which asks:

And please circle one number for each of these statements to show how much you agree or disagree with it. The earth cannot continue to support population growth at its present rate.

The question was asked in the year 2000 and 2010. Demographic breakdowns below for the pooled responses….

Earth can not sustain population growth

	Strongly agree	Agree	Neither	Disagree	Strongly disagree
Non-Hispanic white	15	41	22	20	3
Non-Hispanic black	6	32	28	29	5
Hispanic	14	39	22	23	3
Male	14	42	18	22	4
Female	13	38	26	21	3
Highest educational attainment
< HS	14	46	18	19	3
HS	13	38	24	22	3
Junior College	11	37	28	23	2
Bachelor	14	41	20	21	4
Graduate	16	40	17	23	5
Intelligence, measured by vocab score (WORDSUM 0-4 = stupid, 5-8 = average, 9-10 = smart)
Stupid	14	38	23	21	4
Average	12	41	23	22	3
Smart	21	37	15	22	5
Liberal	20	43	19	17	1
Moderate	12	41	27	18	1
Conservative	11	36	19	28	6
Protestant	12	39	22	23	3
Catholic	13	39	24	21	4
Jewish	15	33	22	30	0
No Religion	18	47	20	13	2
Bible is….
Word of God	11	35	23	27	5
Inspired Word of God	11	41	25	21	3
Book of Fables	23	43	14	18	2
Opinion as to the existence of God
Don’t believe	35	34	13	15	3
No way to find out	24	39	22	14	1
Some higher power	21	51	11	17	1
Believe sometimes	18	43	23	16	0
Believe but with doubts	13	44	22	19	2
Know God exists	11	37	24	24	4