Population Boom

I was looking through CNN's website and I came across an article based on the overpopulation of the planet and that we are path to reach 9 billion by the year 2050!! This article interested me because back in my Biology days I did a small project on China's population issue and the measures that the government put in place to try and curve their boom. The article even mentions the "one child policy" and fines, sterilization and forced abortions, that China has in place. It is crazy to even think of a government that would have these policies in place. The article is actually very good but lacks depth. It goes into India taking the title of largest population and that 1/3 the worlds population will be between India and China. The worlds resources will be challenged, and there will be a relentless pursuit of clean water. The article then goes into that there is only 3% of clean drinkable water in the world, the rest is saltwater. Water is the basis of life, without it we are a baron rock. Scientists in this article are concerned with the future water supply and if it will sustain 9 billion people, not only as drinking water but for sustaining our food supplies. How they got these figures is very suspect and why they did not get into other methods of obtaining clean water. The article to me was borderline fear tactics, nothing real concrete, just estimates. I am sure the J curve of the human population explosion is sky rocketing, first billion in 1830, took almost 2 million years to get there, and 170 years to get to the next 5 billion. I am sure this data is somewhat accurate. But it does not get into the resource issues as in depth as they should, it made arbitrary mentions of the challenges the world will encounter with water and food and wildlife. Water is the biggest issue, desalinization is a reality, it is clean, effective and is a modestly cheap process to get clean drinking water from our enormous oceans. This was never mentioned as a solution for our supposed water crisis. It was an interesting article, I just wished it had more information to support it.