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How many people can the earth support?
More specifically, how many people could the earth support while still giving everyone a "good life?"
-a "good life" is one in which a person can meet their physical and psychological needs. This can be measured as the physical and mental health of a person. Physical health can be measured by things like adequate nutrition, life expectancy, access to medicine, etc. Mental health correlates with happiness, so overall mental health can be measured by self-reported happiness levels.
-mental health is measured by reported happiness levels. By looking at these levels over time, we can determine an "optimal level of resource consumption" to attain maximum happiness. The optimum level would be that level which is the lowest level required to attain the maximum level of happiness.
-Peak happiness was achieved in the late 1950s in America - happiness peaked around 1957, declined somewhat, and has remained pretty steady ever since. When happiness peaked in America, per-capita income was roughly 1/3rd of what it is today (adjusted for inflation). So, we could attain the same or higher happiness with an income 1/3rd of the current average. Source: http://citizenactionmonitor.files.wo...ess-chart2.jpg
-Similar studies were conducted in Britain and Japan with similar results, suggesting this pattern is not specific to a particular culture
-Mexico has reported happiness levels 4 times higher than the United States but is much poorer
-using the above information we can get a general idea of what is physically required to give everyone a "good life."
-using ecological footprint we can determine the footprint required to give a person a "good life," and so we can determine the maximum number of people that can be supported if everyone has a good life.
-The following is meant to be an approximation of the minimum that would be required to give a person a good life, using the above information.
-dwellings would be in apartments no larger than 500 square feet per person (a family of four would have 2000 square feet alloted to them). Detached single family homes would be very rare. 500 square feet is small by American standards but large by the standards of most of the rest of the world (most of which has higher happiness levels than America).
-meat only consumed 3-4 times per week (enough to ensure adequate protein intake).
-less than 50% of food produced more than 200 miles from where it is consumed. This is to minimize the fuel used in transporting food.
-no travel by car or motorcycle. walking and cycling would become the dominant forms of transportation. See below for an explanation of why alternative fuels will not be capable of maintaining car culture.
-travel by airplane is very rare
-50+ miles travelled by public transportation, weekly
-much less trash generated; all packaging is recyclable and recycling is extensive
-to support the above lifestyle, it would take approximately 20 acres of land per person
-To check this, you can go to http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/i...e/calculators/ and plug in the numbers yourself.
-worldwide, there exists ~4.5 acres per person of productive land.
-it would take ~5 times the amount of land that exists on earth to support everyone with the above lifestyle
-there are more than 7 billion people on the planet. Divide this by 5 (amount of land required per person), and this yields 1.4 billion.
-fewer than 1.4 billion people could be supported sustainably with the above lifestyle.
-fossil fuel use must be replaced with sustainable renewable energy sources. It is important to remember that these alternative sources are "alternative;" they are not replacements for oil. For one thing, electricity cannot readily be substituted for liquid fuels without converting vehicles to run on batteries, a costly project in itself.
-For another, how are we going to generate the massive amounts of energy required to power every single car in America in addition to our other needs? It isn't going to happen because the EROEI of alternatives is lower than that of oil. This means we will have less "surplus energy" to dedicate to unessential things like cars.
-To elaborate, wind and solar energy simply do not provide the same "bang for the buck" that we get from crude oil. In the early bonanza days of oil, back when the United States was the world's leading producer of oil, you got something like 100 units of energy returned for every 1 unit of energy invested into the process.
-This is called EROEI, energy returned on energy invested, for short. Today, we get a much lower return on oil because we have to expend a great deal of energy to ship the oil halfway across the world - from the middle east. This doesn't even include the costs of protecting that oil supply with a massive military presence.
-The reason we get our oil from the Middle East is because domestic oil production peaked in 1970 (United States), as Shell Geologist M King Hubbert predicted it would in the 1950s. At the time, Hubbert was ignored by his colleagues. Another important contribution Hubbert made was recognizing that the earth's endowment of fossil fuels is finite. This was also ignored.
-Hubbert predicted that world oil production would peak shortly after the year 2000. All indications are that world oil production peaked 2006; it has not gone up since then despite massive and ever-increasing investments. Simply put, we are spending more energy to find less energy. We are on the downslope.
-Today, the EROEI of crude oil from the middle east is more than 30:1
-Wind power is 25:1 under optimal conditions, but it suffers from intermittency problems and is totally site-dependent.
-Solar (photovaltaic) is around 10:1, but also suffers intermittency
-soy biofuels and grain ethanol have pathetically low EROEI, sometimes lower than 1:1. In other words, they can consume more energy than they produce.
-Source for EROEI numbers: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6854#more
-Upgrades to the electrical grid are needed to make renewable energy work without intermittency. A connected "smart grid" is essential for renewable energy to work. This is a massive project on scale with the interstate highway system. It is doubtful that "the market" can acheive this. The interstate highway system wasn't achieved by the market. It took strong central planning by the national gov't. Projects of this scale require central planning, and that requires the national gov't.
-Wind and solar cannot replace oil because they do not have the same EROEI. The lifestyles we have built around the availability of cheap oil are simply unsustainable. This means an end to car culture and consumerism.
-Nuclear power is not a sustainable solution because the nuclear fuel is finite. A feasible breeder reactor has yet to be built or designed. Those breeder reactors which have been built have all been dismantled for cost or safety problems. The engineers of the 1950s who were betting on this technology as the silver bullet to solve our energy problems would probably be horrified at the utter failure of this technology.
-Nuclear fusion is a fantasy that will never be realized. The quest for fusion energy is the modern-day equivalent of the alchemist turning lead into gold. We have been pouring billions into fusion reserach since the 1950s, and every year the scientists tell us that fusion energy "is still 50 years away." 50 years from now, fusion will still be "50 years away."
-passenger rail will have to be greatly expanded in the United States since travel by car will no longer be feasible. A state of emergency should be declared in order to get the necessary projects built, like Eisenhower did with the interstate highway system
-an end to consumerism also means an end to capitalism; capitalism cannot exist without growth. This means something else (socialism) will have to replace capitalism.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
At the risk of sounding like a primitivist, I have to say that a pretty conservative number would be at around three billion.
My Botany professor assures me that eventually we will hit a rooftop and mass starvation/disease will stabilize our population if we don't do it now.
"The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market."
—Ludwig von Mises
I think the Idea that we need nature to exterminate humans is disgusting.
What about building artificial continents in the Atlantic, Or Pacific, Ect.?
What about the moon? Mars?
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
+ YouTube Video
This thread is silly. Capitalism, as it is now, generates enough food to feed the world but for some reason most of it ends up in the dump?
If you had bothered to read what I wrote, you'd see that the thread isn't about feeding people, but supporting people at a given standard of living.
You can check the numbers for yourself by following the links in the post.
Knee-jerk, reactionary comments do not constitute a sound argument.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
I laughed through that entire song.
Sunt lacrimae rērum et mentem mortālia tangunt.
I am merely saying that either we will have to cut down on our population growth or the laws of nature will, such is the nature of things.
At the same time why don't I wave my magic wand and give everyone free motorcycles? That kind of technology isn't going to exist anytime soon in a world where 10 billion people are projected to be here by 2060.
I'm not saying 90% of Earth's population needs to commit suicide in some bloody Eco death orgy.
I'm saying that this transcends Socialism and Capitalism, as neither will be able to properly allocate the resources necessary for 10+ billion people.
"The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market."
—Ludwig von Mises
Where did you get the impression that that is what I was advocating?
What about doing a little research instead of engaging in puerile fantasy? I've already demonstrated why this isn't possible due to the low EROEI of alternative energy sources.
Last edited by Technocrat; 19th January 2011 at 01:49.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
I don't see the point of this unless you don't think socialism will be more efficient than capitalism.
The maximum number of people depends on the per capita standard of living (resource consumption).
I've suggested a maximum of 1.4 billion given the standard of living (per capita consumption) described in my initial post.
We could support around 20 billion people at the standard of living of say, Mumbai.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
The current definition of happiness is defined by how much you consume? If thats not a bourgeois concept of happiness then my name is Melvin Bullwinkle. I always get a tad errked when I see communists conflate capitalist material abundance with communist material abundance. Under capitalism we throw away most of the 'stuff' we buy, cars are made to break down, electronics become obsolete ever 16 months, clothes go out of fashion, food is wasted on a monumental scale etc. Happiness isnt something that can be measured by consumption. One basic material needs are met happiness is up to the individual, her/his relation to the means of production and the amount of leisure time one has to be ones self with a connection to the community. In America multi millions of people are on anti depressants and we consume the most world wide. The most pharmaceuticals and the most resources.
Socialism will be more efficient, but this doesn't mean that it makes infinite growth in a finite world possible.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
No, I never argued that happiness is defined by consumption, but consumption is definitely a part of being happy. If you didn't have enough food, you wouldn't be very happy, would you? So, if we know that at a minimum a person needs to consume such and such (food, water, shelter, clothing, etc) in order to be healthy (a prerequisite for happiness), we can start to determine a minimum amount that a person needs to consume in order to achieve happiness. If you read my post you'll see that what I've suggested as the required minimum is much less than what Americans currently consume. If you read the part I wrote on happiness research you'll see that I agree that increasing consumption does not increase happiness (beyond a certain point)- check the graph I linked to which shows that happiness peaked in the late 1950s in America, when per-capita income was less than a 1/3rd of what it is now (adjusted for inflation).
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
20 billion is the number we heard in my environmental science class, and that is only if everyone goes vegan. We certainly cannot maintain our current consumption and will have a somewhat lower standard of living in the west. I honestly have no real clue as there is a lot more to the sustainable population limit than food.
20 billion could be supported at the current prosperity level of Mexico.
Source: http://www.ecofuture.org/pop/rpts/mccluney_maxpop.html
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
What is your point, exactly? Why don't you respond to what I've written? Or are you too precious to be bothered to read it? I hardly see how this pointless straw man is constructive in any way.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
Cool. This makes me feel good. I really want to be optimistic about our future.
(Walks up to Child Licensing window)
"Hello, I'm here to fill out an application to pro create....what? I don't meet the criteria to have a child? Oh well, I guess it's for the good of mankind- natural selection and all. Wait a minute...is this natural?"
Eugenics are not a good thing.
Mexico's per-capita income is around 1/6th of the United States'. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to live at that standard of living. I've defined a "good life" as having access to basic necessities guaranteed, which means a standard of living higher than Mexico's but lower than the current US average.Cool. This makes me feel good. I really want to be optimistic about our future.
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.38
