Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Minnesota
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Someone recently made the comment in another thread that in a couple hundred years there won't be enough space on the planet for each individual to stand alone within 1 square meter. Well just to give perspective, there are approximately 176 million acres in the state of Texas alone (from here ). At 43,560sq ft per acre and with a world population of approximately 6 billion, this would give each individual 1300 sq ft of space if the entire world population just stood in Texas. I don't know the total planetary surface area, but I am guessing Texas take up well less than 5% of it, this means that for such a statement to be true the world population would have to more than double every 10 years.

So this got me thinking about other issues regarding the supposed overpopulation of the planet. Is the planet really overpopulated, or are we just reluctant to take measures to ensure everyone gets what they need?

Taking an extreme view point, let's say we divide the world into 2 parts. One part is a giant city which will house the majority of the planets people, the other will be the resourse sector where minerals and metals are mined and food is grown and whatnot. Now with technology being what it is, I don't think we have to limti the residence side to hospitable climates, so let's put that in Canada and Alaska. So now we got everyone living in one giant city which covers Canada and Alaska. The entire rest of the world is given over exclusively to resourse production and managment. Now it seems to me that with so much land not only would it be extremely easy to raise enough resources to feed clothe house and entertain at least twice as many people as we have, but it should also be fairly simple to do so in an evronmentally friendly manner.

This is the very basics of why I believe the global overpopulation idea is a myth, but I thought I'd put it out there and see what you people think on the topic.

You may rip me to shreds now . . .

edit: fixed an incorrect credit

Last edited by geaeslore on 09-24-2003 at 03:43 PM

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quote:

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Originally posted by geaeslore
I believe it was MstrG who made the comment in another thread that in a couple hundred years there won't be enough space on the planet for each individual to stand alone within 1 square meter. Well just to give perspective, there are approximately 176 million acres in the state of Texas alone (from here ). At 43,560sq ft per acre and with a world population of approximately 6 billion, this would give each individual 1300 sq ft of space if the entire world population just stood in Texas. I don't know the total planetary surface area, but I am guessing Texas take up well less than 5% of it, this means that for such a statement to be true the world population would have to more than double every 10 years.

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No, wasn't me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Vegas
Yeah, but why would I ever want to move to Texas?

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Buckminster Fuller, wrote that, given the number of humans on earth and the abundance of resources available to us, every man, woman, and child should be a millionaire many times over.

it's really a matter of over-consumption by many and that many are out of reach of resources.

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There was a professor at Columbia who did a study showing that the entire world's population could be placed in an area the size of one-third of Texas in what would amount to inner city highrises with the rest of the state given over to equal divisions of industry and agriculture. I don't think that's realistic, but it's a different view of population, surely.

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Do that for a few generations and give the rest of the planet a chance to breathe some fresh air for a spell.


But pick some other place besides Texas to bring those outsiders to, please.

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Italy and Russia are shrinking too fast.

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quote:

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Originally posted by geaeslore
Someone recently made the comment in another thread that in a couple hundred years there won't be enough space on the planet for each individual to stand alone within 1 square meter. Well just to give perspective, there are approximately 176 million acres in the state of Texas alone (from here ). At 43,560sq ft per acre and with a world population of approximately 6 billion, this would give each individual 1300 sq ft of space if the entire world population just stood in Texas. I don't know the total planetary surface area, but I am guessing Texas take up well less than 5% of it, this means that for such a statement to be true the world population would have to more than double every 10 years.

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Population won't grow like that, however.

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Apart from the generally accepted fact that the world population will top out at somewhere in the region of around 16 billion (apparently) if you look at the planet and the population concentrations thereon, you will notice vast empty spaces in the Americas, Africa, North, Central and Eastern Asia, the ME, Australia etc etc. Its a question of resources, not overpopulation. The space is there, but you try persuading some guy to go and farm in Siberia. He might point out the inherent difficulties to be faced. Same for the outback, the Amazon, the billion fucking square miles of Tundra in Canada and all the other suare miles of fuck all on this planet. Christ, I was motoring around Wiltshire last week and the place is totally fucking empty. Not a sould to be seen, and yet there are three major towns/cities in the area (Cheltenham, Swindon and Oxford) as well as London only 1hr away by train.

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quote:

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Population won't grow like that, however.

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Cars take up more space than people, in general, in the US.

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sorry, "more than double" was an incorrect phraseology, should've made that relative to current population.
So the population would have to increas by more than 6 billion every 10 years . . .
and no it won't grow like that.

I'm surprised, it seems then that the general consensus here would agree with me on overpopulation being a myth.

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As funkyrooster points out, it is overpopulation relative to resources rather than space. It ought to be self-correcting, in that people should die more often (assuming no contraception used) when population saturation is neared, like any animal population. Our improvements in agriculture only push the deadline back.

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I guess another thing that brought this up was a conversation I was having with an acquaintance of mine the other day. I come from a large family and he at one point made a comment about how irresponsible he felt it was for people to have large families due to the limited resources on the planet.

Now some people will have large families, some small, and some none at all, but as for me I think we are far far from the day when available resources get so tight that that needs to be a concern when people are deciding how many kids to have.

On resources.
Yes, determining overpopulation is a matter of resources. New question: how close or far are we from the point where serious adjustments will need to be made in order to produce enough resources to support the population? Can the population double, triple, quadruple or more before we need to resort to measures such as relocating major cities to untillable land because we get that desparate for food, becoming much closer to a total vegetarian society (since I think you can get more nutrition per acre from producing plants than you can producing livestock.) At what point will the world need to seriously consider regulating reproduction?

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Overpopulation as defined how?

Actual cubic within which to reside/function? By that definition, we are not overpopulated.

By resource usage/exhaustion? Which resources? Measured how? Utilizing what technology level?

Your idea of turning northern canada/alaska into a vast city and farming/mining the rest of the planet presupposes tele-operation of all industry and resource utilization, otherwise someone has to actually live on the farms and in the mines and on the oil rigs/platforms, etc, to operate them.

Overpopulation is a social problem resulting from inequitable distribution of resources. It has always been so, due to the basic nature of man the animal.

What do you propose? "From each according to his ability, to each according to their need"? Wonderful rhetoric, but an enormous problem to realize.

Who decides ability to provide? Who decides "needs"?

Your question is meaningless outside our current, known, frame of reality. Inside that frame, yes, the world is overpopulated.

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I'd be more inclined to say that our systems of distribution are inadequate to our needs.

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here was a fun thread on the subject geaslore: http://www.asylumnation.com/asylum/...ulation+control

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taste the fucking rainbow

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Whenever you say "fun," I automatically think "disagreement."

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and it was Dingle, not G..

quote:

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Originally posted by Dingle
in a couple hundred years there will be so many people that each square meter of land on earth would have a person standing on it. Obviously between now and then something drastic will have to occur, and people-lovers like Sabine who cherish every human life beyond all else will have not have much fun watching BILLIONS of people die presumably slow painful deaths.

"Every 20 minutes, the world adds another 3,500 human lives but loses one or more entire species of animal or plant life - at least 27,000 species per year"

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Registered: Aug 2001
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Here is a little fun factoid:

90% of all humans that ever lived are alive right now.

How'd ya like them apples?

heh

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We are five years away from running out of resources to supply the world's burgeoning population. We have, in fact, been five years away from running out of resources for at least seventy years. There's ample documentary evidence from magazines publuished in the 1920s indicating that the world was about to run out of petroleum.

The world-champion population expert is, of course, Paul Ehrlic. Ehrlic revolutionized environmentalism with his 1968 book The Population Bomb, in which he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that unless the UN took immediate dramatic action to halt population growth, the world would face, at best, massive famine, and at worst, nuclear war, by 1980. He then enhanced his reputation by proving this again in 1984, and then yet again in 1992.

Those of a more skeptical frame of mind will want to check out the writings of Bjorn Lomborg. Thick with research and complicated math-figgerin', but pretty compelling nonetheless. Lomborg argues that lifestyles will continue to get better for most people indefinitely. He places a pretty hefty price tag on global warming, but despite this, he makes a pretty compelling case.

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