Peak Oil and Population reduction

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Yeah, the issue is where all of it comes from though. Also Venus' magnetic field isn't that strong and is created by different forces then the Earth. So it's atmosphere is getting nibbled away at by the solar wind but it is being replenished actively. One theory I tend to support has to do with it's location; it is close enough to the sun that much of it's water evaporated. Not a well known fact, but water is necessary for plate tectonics, providing a sort of lubrication if you will. Venus has almost no water, so it has no tectonics. Instead it's entire surface get replaced every ~1 billion years or so by massive super-vulcanism that builds up over hundreds of millions of years. This is why most of Venus' surface is so young. It could be that a few billion years ago it was much like Earth, but without water in the crust, it was doomed to fail. Maybe life even started there, and not Mars, and eventually arrived here.
There is a layer in Venus' atmosphere that is 1 bar pressure and would be survivable to Humans with just breathing apparatus. It is conceivable that our first livable outpost could be some sort of aerostat colony using the atmosphere to develop raw materials. The development of raw materials from the atmosphere could contribute to thinning it out over time and provide us with carbon resources without exploiting the Earth

Yeah man! It's every classic Star Wars fan's dream come true

If not to settle population pressures though, the other planets we share the system with could ease the resource burden. Mercury, for instance, has almost equal gravity to Mars, despite being smaller, and has a decent magnetic field (1-2% of Earths) as well as abundant cometary water. Though not really a good target for permanent settlement, its immense gravity is probably because it's crust is abundant in iron and other heavy metals that we could certainly use. There would be no need for the EPA on Mercury for strip mining, just safety oversight

I read a work of science fiction where a colony on Mercury was described. Basically they built a huge rail around the entire planet, and the city (not particularly large) essentially moved with the terminator to prevent it being destroyed. Most of the work was done by teleoperation, naturally, on the current 'dark side'.

Fine, YOU GUYS go off into space while I stay on earth and have more leg room, good riddence.

I hope everyone except a few people go into space so I can live amongst the animals.
Everyone you meet is guaranteed to not be a PhD.

Mars would be pretty neat, but orbital structures would be far more interesting to me. It might be easier to construct a starladder on Mars than on Earth though.