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You can add another one that is starting to rear its ugly head - "peak youth". Most westernised nations are under-populating to an extent that they are running out of children. The geriatrification of the population is the result and we can already see the effects of this in Australia.
Skills shortages, delayed retirement, baby boomer business glut are all symptoms of a population that is in decline. Australias answer to this in the past has been mass immigration and it is arguable (beside the improvement in food choices) that this has been a good thing. Culturally we are now so diversifed that we have no common culture on which we could rely to guide our actions in a crisis. The cultural response in 1914 was to saddle up and go and fight for empire. In this current war on terror, the response is either a big yawn, not my problem, take it to the streets in protest or make up a convenient lie to justify it. It is difficult to forsee that thousands of young Aussies will some day make the pilgrimage to Baghdad to marvel at the exploits of the Australian Iraqi Forces (2003-2036).
So Rudd has announced a timetable for the final withdrawal ?
No, 'coz Dubbya whispered the secret 3-letter word in his ear during his recent visit.
I don't have the statistics for Europe, but I know many countries there have problems with both legal and illegal immigration like the United States. It appears that Australia does as well:
Population rates soaring across country
Given peak oil, peak coal, peak natural gas, peak water, peak arable land, peak uranium, peak phosphorus, global warming, etc., "peak youth" would seem to be the proper course of action in all countries. However, almost all countries are dead set on taking an opposite course and I wonder how many countries have even a possibility of a population decline. Russia is the only one that I can remember reading about - they declined in population after the collapse of the Soviet Union from what I recall.
Peak youth, even if it was a problem in some respects (it would be great to be of working age in such a society) would only be a temporary one, with many lasting benefits.
Culturally we are now so diversifed that we have no common culture on which we could rely to guide our actions in a crisis. The cultural response in 1914 was to saddle up and go and fight for empire.
You bring up an important point. What is really required is that our first allegiance be to humanity, and our second to our own country (which ever it is). Humanity now faces challenges that can no longer solved for anyone other than thru global cooperation. That's what's totally new in the world. That doesn't mean different nations don't have different interests and that haggling won't go on. But we will go under together if we don't get it together as a species.
Unfortunately, there's still enough hydrocarbons and metals in the ground to support one more gigantic spasm of bloodshed on a global scale, so that is far from excluded. But it's well worth avoiding if possible. Otherwise we'll have to do our best after the smoke clears and the radiation dies down. (The Iraqis are accumulating relevant experience as we speak.)