The Over-Population Myth

[Pangloss]

Basically it's about there being no limit to the number pf people the earth can sustain because God is going to provide for us as opposed to the earth is finite and eventually we will exceed it's carrying capacity.

 

Isn't that your addition to the subject in post #3, though? I see no mention of God in the opening post. I don't think that's really fair to needsimprovement. If he's okay with that, though, that's fine with me.

[Mr Skeptic]

There's also the faith in technology group, which believe we will adapt more quickly than our population grows (at least for quite a while, obviously exponential growth can't be kept up), and there's also the view that we have no right to implement any massive population control programs so that its a moot point.

 

The problem I have with this discussion is the tacit (and sometimes specific) association of Western development with overpopulation. These are clearly two separate things. If you want to talk about birth rates in the third world, then let's talk about birth rates in the third world, not housing construction in West Virginia, construction in developed nations, or the evils of religion. The United States has a modest birth rate and a massive immigration rate. So if you want to focus this thread on birth rate, fine, but don't go telling me that I'm the problem. I'm not the one cranking out the kids.

 

The irony is that I'm also constantly being told that it's so much more important to save lives in the third world, and cure aids, than it is to fix the political problems down there. It's like I'm being told that life is more important, except when it's MY life (white anglo-saxon protestant semi-prosperous American male*) we're talking about.

 

So what is the subject of this thread, exactly? Sanctity of life, poverty, urban blight, suburban growth, or the ecosphere?

 

 

*I just realized that acronym would be WASP-SPAM. (rofl)

 

I thought it was that we can solve the population problem by putting everyone on 0.027 acres of land each in Texas, where they will starve to death in squalor, solving the population problem.

[Moontanman]

Isn't that your addition to the subject in post #3, though? I see no mention of God in the opening post. I don't think that's really fair to needsimprovement. If he's okay with that, though, that's fine with me.

 

 

Good point, but this thread is a result of the birth control thread after the discussion landed on the over population part. Or at least I thought it was... Then again the OP did bring myth into it from the begining...

[needimprovement]

No I'm not...

 

 

 

14 billion is a few billion more....

 

 

 

None the less even this will not even come close to being enough if our numbers continue to rise...

 

 

 

None the less even this will not even come close to being enough if our numbers continue to rise...

 

 

 

None the less even this will not even come close to being enough if our numbers continue to rise...

 

No matter how efficiently we use our resources at some point we will run out. I have no doubt technology will delay this but around the world even now there is not enough to go around and with every child born it gets worse.

People have been singing this sad old song since Malthus in the 1700s, and the sky hasn't fallen yet.

 

 

There is a lot more petroleum in the ground than many organizations will admit. It fits their agenda that we are running out of fuel and need to use other energies instead, although there is no current energy that will substitute for petroleum.

 

What if there was a solution to any future energy problems, in the form of a baby who would grow up to discover/invent a wonderful, clean, renewable energy for the world, which would remove the stranglehold and power of the Middle East, but we aborted that child?

Edited October 20, 2010 by needimprovement

[D H]

A quick search on a web site that lists homes for sale and I see that the average 3 bedroom home, so I take it that this would be for 3 to 4 people (that is a couple sharing one bedroom) is just over 2000 square feet. So 1176.12 square feet for one person is a big area.

A quick search on a web site that describes formal and informal fallacies and I see that this argument is a composition of two fallacies, specifically the composition fallacy and the straw man fallacy. You have equated the small area we need for housing to the total area we need for everything but housing. That is a composition fallacy. You used this fallacy as a means of ridiculing the notion of over population, and that is a straw man argument.

 

There is no room for the fact that we are living beings in your equation. Where, for example, are the farms and rivers in your equation? I don't know about you, but I do like to eat. I also need an occasional drink of water as well. Where are the roads to distribute that food, the reservoirs to hold the water? Where are the sewage systems to collect and sanitize the resultant waste? What are you going to do, airlift food and water in, airlift honey pots out?

 

 

 

 

 

[needimprovement]

Only the rich are concerned about this. There are too many peasants.

 

In 1968, a great year for propaganda and the rise of the Hippies, a man named Paul Ehrlich put out a book titled The Polpulation Bomb. He was wrong about his prediction of mass starvation, but his book did influence some people.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Population-Bomb-Paul-R-Ehrlich/dp/1568495870

 

Why doesn't the United States send more food to more people who are starving? Who's going to pay for it? Who is going to ship it? Who is going to distribute it?

 

In the US, farmers are paid billions of dollars every year to grow nothing.

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-04/most-u-s-farm-subsidies-go-to-10-of-recipients-group-says.html

 

Why? Supply and demand. For example, if the government knows that the average amount of corn grown each year is around a trillion tons, then that's it. That's enough corn for food, cattle feed and any other use you might think of. They can't grow more. Why? Because no one will buy it and prices will go down.

 

Farming is a business and every business needs to make a profit.

 

And even if some surplus grain could be shipped to Africa, who pays for shipping? The taxpayer? And once it gets there, the corrupt government may impose an import tax, and then trucks will have to be rented to bring it to the villages. The other problem is bandits and even militaries who kill the drivers and take the trucks and food.

 

Here, resources can be recycled. But, the problem is always money. If we recycle more aluminum, then the people who mine bauxite, the mineral from which we get aluminum, will mine less, which is good and bad. Less work means less employees, but it will stretch our supply of aluminum into the future.

 

China has shown us a concrete method of population control in their one child policy.

 

Here is a chart that shows where most population growth is occurring.

 

http://chartsbin.com/view/xr6

 

I've learned thT In the United States, you have fewer kids. That's why schools, public and private, are closing. The Baby Boom generation is beginning to retire and is mostly past its prime child bearing years.

 

No need to worry. This is alarmist talk that falls apart under scrutiny.

 

A quick search on a web site that describes formal and informal fallacies and I see that this argument is a composition of two fallacies, specifically the composition fallacy and the straw man fallacy. You have equated the small area we need for housing to the total area we need for everything but housing. That is a composition fallacy. You used this fallacy as a means of ridiculing the notion of over population, and that is a straw man argument.

 

There is no room for the fact that we are living beings in your equation. Where, for example, are the farms and rivers in your equation? I don't know about you, but I do like to eat. I also need an occasional drink of water as well. Where are the roads to distribute that food, the reservoirs to hold the water? Where are the sewage systems to collect and sanitize the resultant waste? What are you going to do, airlift food and water in, airlift honey pots out?

Considering the farms, rivers, etc, I took the world population number, gave each person a two foot by two foot space to stand. I found that everyone at that time would easily fit in RI.

 

The problem is not how many people there is. It is the logistics of feeding, clothing and caring for everyone.

[jackson33]

Between Mumbai and Kalkata India, about 27 million people live in 1025 sqkm (1sqkm= 2.59 sqmi) or about 27,000 people per sqkm, or about 2655 square miles. Houston Texas, the city has 601 sqmi and the greater Houston area 12,500 sqmi. In theory up tp 125 million people could live in the area of greater Houston alone, well over 1/3rd the current US population.

 

http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html

 

People already in live in very large cities, in most cases with little or no natural resources and are doing just fine. Some have business parks or as in Houston, a factory may be in the middle of a residential area or as in NYC where it's almost all small business or service business for outside NYC, but most needed natural resources and products are transported (piped/rail/truck) into the area.

 

The MYTH then is just that, a Myth. The overstatement that the Earth cannot support nearly 7B people, is incorrect, in fact it's THAT reason (can support), 7B people are here. There are many other factors to why problems exist in many parts of the world, in part including political policy, transportation of goods/cost and/or infrastructure, just a couple. I personally believe North America could grow the food we use/waste daily for NA for every person now on this planet TODAY and maybe another 5B people or so, then with technology advancements in agriculture (yields), animal production (farming), fertilizers and so on, alone in 20 years maybe another 10B.

 

An interesting comparison, might be ANTS. I don't know who figured this out, but it's said ants out weigh humans on the planet by 50 to one, for every human by pound, there are 50 pounds of ants.

 

While, Religion is NOT part of the threads intent, many including myself say religion is a CAUSE for anything seen as over population. This would be a reasonably new factor however, as abortion, contraceptives have not been around that long and some religions do object to there use. Occasionally I'll use this argument under "drumming down" of society as many of the poorer societies are very religious.

 

 

There is a lot more petroleum in the ground than many organizations will admit. It fits their agenda that we are running out of fuel and need to use other energies instead, although there is no current energy that will substitute for petroleum. [/Quote]

 

need, since your bringing in resources, and I agree with the above comment and it's certainly the next step for any 'over population' issue; Energy sources have always change to meet demand and availability of a fuel. Today Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Coal are primary, only because they have been the least expensive, being easy to get at transport, including the infrastructure. As for peak and I've been arguing this for 50 years or more, we probably have enough to last hundreds of years without any alternatives and likely for any number of people, which are being developed daily. Not intended to be an AGW comment).

[Moontanman]

Only the rich are concerned about this. There are too many peasants.

 

This is the second time you have made this assertion, not only poor people need to stop having too many children, this applies to every one, being poor only makes it worse for you right now but even rich people can over populate the planet. Having fewer children would make the plight of the third world poor better, it would not make things better for any one but them.

 

 

Why doesn't the United States send more food to more people who are starving? Who's going to pay for it? Who is going to ship it? Who is going to distribute it?

 

While I feel the USA does a pretty good job in sending aid to other countries it is like poring water down a drain that just gets bigger as you pour more water. The population just gets bigger and bigger, birth control is the only way to insure the need doesn't continue to out grow the supply.

 

In the US, farmers are paid billions of dollars every year to grow nothing.

 

What is your point? The church doesn't exactly live in poverty until the entire earth is fed and clothed.

 

 

 

Why? Supply and demand. For example, if the government knows that the average amount of corn grown each year is around a trillion tons, then that's it. That's enough corn for food, cattle feed and any other use you might think of. They can't grow more. Why? Because no one will buy it and prices will go down.

 

Farming is a business and every business needs to make a profit.

 

Again, your point would be?

 

And even if some surplus grain could be shipped to Africa, who pays for shipping? The taxpayer? And once it gets there, the corrupt government may impose an import tax, and then trucks will have to be rented to bring it to the villages. The other problem is bandits and even militaries who kill the drivers and take the trucks and food.

 

Ship grain to Africa so they can have more babies in total squalor and need more grain? How about teach them to feed them selves and limit their families to two or three instead of 14?

 

Here, resources can be recycled. But, the problem is always money. If we recycle more aluminum, then the people who mine bauxite, the mineral from which we get aluminum, will mine less, which is good and bad. Less work means less employees, but it will stretch our supply of aluminum into the future.

 

Recycling is not 100% and even that will not stave off the collapse forever...

 

China has shown us a concrete method of population control in their one child policy.

 

Worked too didn't it? Sad it took such draconian methods but China had reached an impasse, there simply wasn't enough to go around.

 

Here is a chart that shows where most population growth is occurring.

 

http://chartsbin.com/view/xr6

 

I've learned thT In the United States, you have fewer kids. That's why schools, public and private, are closing. The Baby Boom generation is beginning to retire and is mostly past its prime child bearing years.

 

No need to worry. This is alarmist talk that falls apart under scrutiny.

 

No your argument falls apart due to the laws of nature, a rising population on a finite planet is not sustainable in the long term.

[lemur]

This is a great rant, let them eat cake! I doubt the current population of the world could exist at the level of wealth now seen in most western countries. None the less no matter how thin you spread the resources if we don't stop reproducing eventually there will be no resources for anyone to use.

I always found it funny that "let them eat cake" was considered so naive. After all, cake is made from flour, eggs, and sugar. Maybe sugar was insufficient in those days but why wasn't there enough flour and eggs? No matter, the bigger point is that I wasn't saying let the poor "eat cake." I was saying that the cake-eaters should develop their culture(s) to the point of efficiency and then when the developing economies look to the developed for goal-setting, they will see efficiency instead of rampant waste. My whole point was exactly what you say about doubting the world can exist at the level of wealth enjoyed by many in the west. In other words, the reason there is scarcity in the world is because there is waste and inefficiency, and of course exclusion.

 

I don't understand how the religious argument can trump reality. The Earth is not big enough to house the people we currently have. somewhere it has been said that we are already using the resource equivalent of 1.4 earths and most of the world's population exists at a economic level far below the west. If we continue to reproduce at an increasing rate we will use up everything and die off.

"Somewhere it has been said?" Maybe in your bible of Malthusian pessimism. You are simply assuming a lot of factors. I totally understand the simple logic of what you are saying, but that's just it. Malthusians have been employing the same simple logic for centuries without dissecting economics down to the finest details. How much land does it take to feed a human individual? Now what about if food is produced hydroponically in sky-scrapers? What if hydrogen fusion is used to power grow lamps where sunlight could otherwise not reach? Wouldn't food-production then only be limited by energy? Water is another story, but water can be managed. I think the actual material limits of basic life resourcing are still evolving and cannot yet be known except in terms of current practices, which are typically inefficient and wasteful (have I used the words inefficiency and waste enough yet?)

 

A 2500 calorie diet, which is recommended for adult males, is about 3 kilowatt-hours worth of energy. I just googled it and a gallon of gasoline contains about 31,000 food calories worth of energy, the equivalent of more than 10 days worth of food for an adult male. Please don't tell me that humans can't eat gasoline, because I've tried (not really). The point is that a human body just doesn't use that much energy. Most of the problems caused by humans are by what they do and not what they consume, at least not be what they consume directly to maintain their body metabolism. The problems that need solving are not population growth but rather resource use and management and other social problems that make it difficult for people to live with each other. A major one of those problems is waste and inefficiency in the developed economies.

 

 

[Moontanman]

Between Mumbai and Kalkata India, about 27 million people live in 1025 sqkm (1sqkm= 2.59 sqmi) or about 27,000 people per sqkm, or about 2655 square miles. Houston Texas, the city has 601 sqmi and the greater Houston area 12,500 sqmi. In theory up tp 125 million people could live in the area of greater Houston alone, well over 1/3rd the current US population.

 

Yes what a living hell that would be, but your point is still that we should breed till we are shoulder to shoulder across the globe?

 

 

People already in live in very large cities, in most cases with little or no natural resources and are doing just fine. Some have business parks or as in Houston, a factory may be in the middle of a residential area or as in NYC where it's almost all small business or service business for outside NYC, but most needed natural resources and products are transported (piped/rail/truck) into the area.

 

They still need natural resources, they get them from outside the city, eventually the cities will not be able to live off the surrounding land, i honestly do not see your point.

 

The MYTH then is just that, a Myth. The overstatement that the Earth cannot support nearly 7B people, is incorrect, in fact it's THAT reason (can support), 7B people are here. There are many other factors to why problems exist in many parts of the world, in part including political policy, transportation of goods/cost and/or infrastructure, just a couple. I personally believe North America could grow the food we use/waste daily for NA for every person now on this planet TODAY and maybe another 5B people or so, then with technology advancements in agriculture (yields), animal production (farming), fertilizers and so on, alone in 20 years maybe another 10B.

 

jackson33, no one has said the earth cannot support 7 billion people, read the thread again. The OP says the earth can continue to support an increasing population forever, it demonstrably cannot.

 

 

An interesting comparison, might be ANTS. I don't know who figured this out, but it's said ants out weigh humans on the planet by 50 to one, for every human by pound, there are 50 pounds of ants.

 

What would be your point?

 

While, Religion is NOT part of the threads intent, many including myself say religion is a CAUSE for anything seen as over population. This would be a reasonably new factor however, as abortion, contraceptives have not been around that long and some religions do object to there use. Occasionally I'll use this argument under "drumming down" of society as many of the poorer societies are very religious.

 

We agree then.

 

I always found it funny that "let them eat cake" was considered so naive. After all, cake is made from flour, eggs, and sugar. Maybe sugar was insufficient in those days but why wasn't there enough flour and eggs?

 

Seriously lemur, why couldn't they eat cake? They had no bread, they were starving do to lack of basic food stuffs, no flour, no eggs, no sugar, there was no cake for any one but the queen. The queen was too stupid to realize the people were starving and she lost her head when she found out...

 

No matter, the bigger point is that I wasn't saying let the poor "eat cake." I was saying that the cake-eaters should develop their culture(s) to the point of efficiency and then when the developing economies look to the developed for goal-setting, they will see efficiency instead of rampant waste. My whole point was exactly what you say about doubting the world can exist at the level of wealth enjoyed by many in the west. In other words, the reason there is scarcity in the world is because there is waste and inefficiency, and of course exclusion.

 

While I agree with you, you seem to need to leave out the most important part, too many people to feed.

 

 

"Somewhere it has been said?" Maybe in your bible of Malthusian pessimism. You are simply assuming a lot of factors. I totally understand the simple logic of what you are saying, but that's just it. Malthusians have been employing the same simple logic for centuries without dissecting economics down to the finest details. How much land does it take to feed a human individual? Now what about if food is produced hydroponically in sky-scrapers? What if hydrogen fusion is used to power grow lamps where sunlight could otherwise not reach? Wouldn't food-production then only be limited by energy? Water is another story, but water can be managed. I think the actual material limits of basic life resourcing are still evolving and cannot yet be known except in terms of current practices, which are typically inefficient and wasteful (have I used the words inefficiency and waste enough yet?)

 

yes here

 

No one is saying there's not enough room for a few billion more people, but there is not enough resources. For example if you measure by people's ecological footprint, rather than the size of their house. After all, people don't just want a house, the also want to eat, have a job, and have fun, all of which require resources. By some estimates, our ecological footprint is already at 1.4 earths, or 40% more than the earth can sustain. We can do that because we're coasting off the earth's historical reserves of resources, eg coal which we use both for energy but also to produce the fertilizer we need to sustain our huge population.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint

 

 

A 2500 calorie diet, which is recommended for adult males, is about 3 kilowatt-hours worth of energy. I just googled it and a gallon of gasoline contains about 31,000 food calories worth of energy, the equivalent of more than 10 days worth of food for an adult male. Please don't tell me that humans can't eat gasoline, because I've tried (not really). The point is that a human body just doesn't use that much energy. Most of the problems caused by humans are by what they do and not what they consume, at least not be what they consume directly to maintain their body metabolism. The problems that need solving are not population growth but rather resource use and management and other social problems that make it difficult for people to live with each other. A major one of those problems is waste and inefficiency in the developed economies.

 

So you are seriously suggesting we restrict food intake before we use birth control? Still it doesn't matter, no matter if we put the whole planet on 500 calories a day eventually with out some sort of stop the population will indeed out strip resources, it has happened before, it will happen again, if nothing else, as was said in this thread already, there simply isn't enough material on the planet to allow us to reproduce at the rate we are now forever. period...

 

People have been singing this sad old song since Malthus in the 1700s, and the sky hasn't fallen yet.

 

So if it hasn't happened it cannot happen? Really?

 

 

There is a lot more petroleum in the ground than many organizations will admit. It fits their agenda that we are running out of fuel and need to use other energies instead, although there is no current energy that will substitute for petroleum.

 

This is a possibility but I'd like to see something to back up this very out of the mainstream view, PM me.

 

What if there was a solution to any future energy problems, in the form of a baby who would grow up to discover/invent a wonderful, clean, renewable energy for the world, which would remove the stranglehold and power of the Middle East, but we aborted that child?

 

I don't see why abortion would be a part of this thread, I doubt abortion will ever have major impact on live births but birth control would. Quantity does not necessarily equal quality anyway.

[padren]

There's a lot of views on a lot of facts that seem to be rather "diverse" overall.... can we try to nail some things down?

1) Unlimited exponential growth will exhaust any limited resource, no matter how large that limit is.

Can we agree on this? This should be the easiest because exponential growth is really easy math. Mr Skeptic's graph, while based on data sampling, clearly demonstrates experiential growth and as such, we should be able to agree in principle that point 1 is a mathematical fact.

 

2) It is theoretically possible to greatly reduce our ecological footprint and increase the number of humans the world can support

Moderate gains are very possible, though some require lifestyle changes and others require technology that does not yet exist.

 

3) The current total balance of consumption and population is currently straining the world's capacity to support current human populations.

I will give the caveat that even if we continued to deplete resources in quantities greater than their capacity to renew, we could probably find means to support our current global population through lifestyle and technological changes. However, current rates of extinctions, deforestation, the collapse of various fisheries in the North Atlantic do suggest that we are using more of some resources than the world can sustain.

It may be possible to switch from one resource to another after depleting one, but it should be obvious that currently the resource we use is more efficient within our current state of affairs. If it wasn't, we would have already switched for free market reasons.

 

4) More resources per person always equals more options, and more options allow for a higher quality of life per person.

No matter how efficient a society or family is, each individual consumes or ties up some amount of resources. For every person that doesn't exist but could, there are more resources per person that do, so even if a person can "survive on [n] resources" they can survive and additionally improve quality of life with "[n]+" resources.

 

5) Land to live on is not the bottleneck in resource consumption, so honestly it is irrelevant.

If you wish to argue how land can be used to increase the availability of scarce resources, that's fine but arguments about how much room there is for people to live on are irrelevant. Also, theoretical means of converting unused land to resources that require additional technology should remain with the caveat that they are, in fact theoretical, and not be confused with contemporary means to actuate such conversions.

 

 

I really can't discuss the nuance of this topic without at least knowing where people stand on those 5 questions, and I think for the focus of the discussion it could help in general, so we don't talk around points none of us are actually disagreeing on, nor arguing the quality of an argument that is based on a precept that multiple parties assume they agree on but don't.

 

Just my two cents anyway

[Moontanman]

There's a lot of views on a lot of facts that seem to be rather "diverse" overall.... can we try to nail some things down?

1) Unlimited exponential growth will exhaust any limited resource, no matter how large that limit is.

Can we agree on this? This should be the easiest because exponential growth is really easy math. Mr Skeptic's graph, while based on data sampling, clearly demonstrates experiential growth and as such, we should be able to agree in principle that point 1 is a mathematical fact.

 

2) It is theoretically possible to greatly reduce our ecological footprint and increase the number of humans the world can support

Moderate gains are very possible, though some require lifestyle changes and others require technology that does not yet exist.

 

3) The current total balance of consumption and population is currently straining the world's capacity to support current human populations.

I will give the caveat that even if we continued to deplete resources in quantities greater than their capacity to renew, we could probably find means to support our current global population through lifestyle and technological changes. However, current rates of extinctions, deforestation, the collapse of various fisheries in the North Atlantic do suggest that we are using more of some resources than the world can sustain.

It may be possible to switch from one resource to another after depleting one, but it should be obvious that currently the resource we use is more efficient within our current state of affairs. If it wasn't, we would have already switched for free market reasons.

 

4) More resources per person always equals more options, and more options allow for a higher quality of life per person.

No matter how efficient a society or family is, each individual consumes or ties up some amount of resources. For every person that doesn't exist but could, there are more resources per person that do, so even if a person can "survive on [n] resources" they can survive and additionally improve quality of life with "[n]+" resources.

 

5) Land to live on is not the bottleneck in resource consumption, so honestly it is irrelevant.

If you wish to argue how land can be used to increase the availability of scarce resources, that's fine but arguments about how much room there is for people to live on are irrelevant. Also, theoretical means of converting unused land to resources that require additional technology should remain with the caveat that they are, in fact theoretical, and not be confused with contemporary means to actuate such conversions.

 

 

I really can't discuss the nuance of this topic without at least knowing where people stand on those 5 questions, and I think for the focus of the discussion it could help in general, so we don't talk around points none of us are actually disagreeing on, nor arguing the quality of an argument that is based on a precept that multiple parties assume they agree on but don't.

 

Just my two cents anyway

 

 

I have no problem with any of these things.

[Sayonara]

What if there was a solution to any future energy problems, in the form of a baby who would grow up to discover/invent a wonderful, clean, renewable energy for the world, which would remove the stranglehold and power of the Middle East, but we aborted that child?

Well, see the problem is that your scenario requires destiny, that is to say that people's fates are pre-determined. But if this were the case, then the abortion was always destined to occur and your baby genius could not have been born.

 

On the other hand the alternative option, no predestination, means that your comment is still an unstructured appeal to emotion that has no relevance to your own thread.

 

This has all the hallmarks of the "my initial strongly-worded claims eventually turn out to be a complaint that something is commonly misnamed" type of thread.

 

I should point out, needimprovement, that overpopulation is in fact real. If you consider any given habitat, up to and including the scale of the entire planet, you will find that you have a finite resource pool. Since biological organisms require finite resources to live, elementary mathematics dictate that there must be an upper limit to the number of organisms which can simultaneously and continuously access those resources. In population biology that limit would be the carrying capacity k of the habitat.

 

Now it is true that you can modify the value of k by altering the efficiency of resource utilisation, speed of replenishment, per capita minimum requirements, etc. But at some point you go as far as you can with changing those numbers and your only achievement is that you have shifted k, not removed it altogether. You can't remove it. Resource utilisation by definition cannot be infinitely low.

[lemur]

1) Unlimited exponential growth will exhaust any limited resource, no matter how large that limit is.

Can we agree on this? This should be the easiest because exponential growth is really easy math. Mr Skeptic's graph, while based on data sampling, clearly demonstrates experiential growth and as such, we should be able to agree in principle that point 1 is a mathematical fact.

What if the resources also grow exponentially?

 

2) It is theoretically possible to greatly reduce our ecological footprint and increase the number of humans the world can support

Moderate gains are very possible, though some require lifestyle changes and others require technology that does not yet exist.

How can you predict whether the possibility of gains is moderate, weak, or strong? Obviously lifestyle/cultural change is a condition and technological developments are part and parcel of that.

 

3) The current total balance of consumption and population is currently straining the world's capacity to support current human populations.

I will give the caveat that even if we continued to deplete resources in quantities greater than their capacity to renew, we could probably find means to support our current global population through lifestyle and technological changes. However, current rates of extinctions, deforestation, the collapse of various fisheries in the North Atlantic do suggest that we are using more of some resources than the world can sustain.

It may be possible to switch from one resource to another after depleting one, but it should be obvious that currently the resource we use is more efficient within our current state of affairs. If it wasn't, we would have already switched for free market reasons.

I just don't understand how you can attribute such resource depletion to population numbers when you can go to any food-service facility such as restaurants and supermarkets and see for yourself how much food is thrown away hourly. Don't blame people for eating too much fish when they don't even get to eat most of it before it gets thrown away.

 

4) More resources per person always equals more options, and more options allow for a higher quality of life per person.

No matter how efficient a society or family is, each individual consumes or ties up some amount of resources. For every person that doesn't exist but could, there are more resources per person that do, so even if a person can "survive on [n] resources" they can survive and additionally improve quality of life with "[n]+" resources.

Now you're tapping into the heart of population concerns: greed . . . or possibly naive materialistic consumerism.

 

5) Land to live on is not the bottleneck in resource consumption, so honestly it is irrelevant.

If you wish to argue how land can be used to increase the availability of scarce resources, that's fine but arguments about how much room there is for people to live on are irrelevant. Also, theoretical means of converting unused land to resources that require additional technology should remain with the caveat that they are, in fact theoretical, and not be confused with contemporary means to actuate such conversions.

If so, projections of reproduction and population growth should remain with the same caveat.

 

 

[Mr Skeptic]

Hm, I decided to crunch some different numbers.

The total global biomass has been estimated to be 2000 billion tonnes with 1600 billion of those tonnes in forests. (wikipedia)

 

(Properly I'd use dry biomass, but these are just for estimating so even an order of magnitude difference won't matter much.)

 

Lets suppose we humans can learn not to eat, and to get our energy directly from electricity from solar panels, but are limited to the current biomass. So we eat every single living thing down to the smallest bacteria and power ourselves by solar panels. Lets further assume that we have the same growth rate as the last 40 years, during which time our population increased to about 1.8 times what it was before.

 

We humans number about 7 billion, and if we each weigh about 100 kg, that would be 700 million tons of human biomass. So we're using up about 0.044% of the biomass and would have to multiply by about 2.3 thousand times our population to use it all. So therefore given these totally ridiculous assumptions, it would take 525 years or so before we occupied the entire biomass of the earth, no bacteria, plants or animal, nothing but humans left. To keep going past that, we'd have to actually increase the total of earth's biomass just to have the biomass for the humans.

 

The key here is of course the growth rate. It just simply doesn't matter how many resources we have, with an exponential growth rate we'll eventually not have enough. We can't maintain such a growth rate indefinitely; if we don't stop it ourselves the laws of physics will do it for us.

 

The only, only way we could maintain exponential growth would be to have faster than light travel at an increasing speed.

 

What if the resources also grow exponentially?

 

Then the earth would weigh a lot more and eventually become a black hole and we'd have to get rid of the law of conservation of mass-energy?

[Pangloss]

The population just gets bigger and bigger, birth control is the only way to insure the need doesn't continue to out grow the supply.

 

Are you advocating mandatory birth control?

 

Also, how have you established that the demand is more than potential supply?

 

 

1) Unlimited exponential growth will exhaust any limited resource, no matter how large that limit is.

 

Sure. It has not been established that we'll run out of resources before population becomes a problem, but yes, that's logical enough.

 

 

2) It is theoretically possible to greatly reduce our ecological footprint and increase the number of humans the world can support

 

Sure, that's possible.

 

 

3) The current total balance of consumption and population is currently straining the world's capacity to support current human populations.

 

No, I don't believe that.

 

 

4) More resources per person always equals more options, and more options allow for a higher quality of life per person.

 

Allows, perhaps, but the potential quality of life presently is far in excess of anything I'll ever experience (not possessing a billion dollars of disposable income), so I don't really see much benefit in increasing those "options".

 

 

5) Land to live on is not the bottleneck in resource consumption, so honestly it is irrelevant.

 

Yes.

[padren]

What if the resources also grow exponentially?

The Earth is made out of a finite number of atoms, and all of the resources available to us come from those atoms. If we were to take an extreme leap of faith and hope to utilize every atom in the solar system, we will still reach a point where we have to leave this system and expand to consume exo-solar atoms to continue to grow.

 

Even if we were to expand in every direction at light speed, we could not continue to acquire resources at an exponential rate in step with exponential population growth. It may be delayed to an inconceivable point in the future (just as any mechanism to convert our own solar system to useable resources within an exponential rate of return is also inconceivable) but truly exponential growth in resources is beyond highly improbable. It would really require some sort of "zero point energy source" and the means to convert that energy into matter.

 

 

In other words, if we could accomplish exponential growth in resources to sustain our human population, we would be so far removed from our current state I don't think you could call us human anymore.

How can you predict whether the possibility of gains is moderate, weak, or strong? Obviously lifestyle/cultural change is a condition and technological developments are part and parcel of that.

That is a bit out of the scope of the assertion, I just wanted to be sure we could agree. It may be "easy" to reduce it by 75%, or maybe only 10% I don't know. However, our core needs require a specific quantity of energy to be met, and you cannot reduce the footprint beyond a 100% efficiency just like a car engine can't be more than 100% efficient. As such, it is evident that our ecological footprint can't be reduced at an exponential rate either.

 

As to the specifics, I don't know how those numbers work out, just that past a point reducing the footprint further will result in diminishing returns.

 

I just don't understand how you can attribute such resource depletion to population numbers when you can go to any food-service facility such as restaurants and supermarkets and see for yourself how much food is thrown away hourly. Don't blame people for eating too much fish when they don't even get to eat most of it before it gets thrown away.

Our current system requires waste. Pointing out that it is wasteful is not the same thing as developing and advocating a less wasteful alternative. The current system that we have, as wasteful as it is, is the only system we are aware of that is capable of allowing us to even discuss the concept of waste reduction in the manner we are. Innovation requires experimentation, much of experimentation is unnecessary and also wasteful, yet without it we wouldn't even have the internet to carry on this discussion.

 

Consider the fact the energy you are expending by running your computer right now is considered "leisure" and not at all necessary for your immediate survival. That is wasted energy. You can hope that new information you gain from this leisure activity brings about an overall efficiency gain and thus reduce your total waste over time, but that is speculative.

 

 

The one thing we can be certain about though, is that waste is part of our current system, and we have to start from where we are now to change anything, and as it is now we consume a large amount of resources.

 

Now you're tapping into the heart of population concerns: greed . . . or possibly naive materialistic consumerism.

Why is it greedy to want your children to have a low mortality rate? Why is it greedy to want your children to be unencumbered by disease and low life expectancy?

How is it greed, when it is due to our consumption (willingness to burn tons of resources to find an answer that may or may not be there) that we have any chance of alleviating the suffering in the poorest societies?

All the techniques we've developed to reduce waste have come from taking resources that could have been used for survival, and instead wasting them on attempts to improve the quality of life for generations forward.

 

You really think that's greed?

If so, projections of reproduction and population growth should remain with the same caveat.

You mean they should be treated as theoretical? Reproduction and population growth are definitely exponential processes. The only limiting factor is birth control, either by abstinence, contraception, or mortality/infanticide/neglect. The key factor in the last set (mortality/infanticide/neglect) arise due to a lack of accessible resources, which through immense suffering can limit population growth but is not a factor if we are talking about population growth as-is without the condition of limited access to resources.

 

As such it's a definitive fact, that population growth is based on exponential processes leading to definitively mathematical exponential rates of return.

 

There is no room for such a caveat on this.

 

What if there was a solution to any future energy problems, in the form of a baby who would grow up to discover/invent a wonderful, clean, renewable energy for the world, which would remove the stranglehold and power of the Middle East, but we aborted that child?

What if there was a solution to any future energy problems, in the form of a baby who would grow up to discover/invent a wonderful, clean, renewable energy for the world, which would remove the stranglehold and power of the Middle East, but we prevented the vicious brutal rape that would have led to his conception?

 

What if by beating my neighbor to death, his brother is driven to start a scholarship program in his honor, and that results in someone discovering how to get unlimited energy out of rainbows?

 

On some level, I get the idea that "9,000,000,001 minds are better than 9,000,000,000" but you have to resort to some pretty outlandish logic to play the "genius roulette" game, and the same logic works as justifications for many far more horrible things just as easily as it does in your example.

[lemur]

Then the earth would weigh a lot more and eventually become a black hole and we'd have to get rid of the law of conservation of mass-energy?

 

Ok, you assumed by "resource growth" I meant mass. The mass of the Earth isn't increasing, by much anyway. Now think in terms of rate of availability.

[Mr Skeptic]

Ok, you assumed by "resource growth" I meant mass. The mass of the Earth isn't increasing, by much anyway. Now think in terms of rate of availability.

 

Sure, resource availability might increase, but that won't change the total amount of resources. If we keep growing our population, eventually we will end up using all the resources in the solar system, then all the resources in nearby solar systems, and also eventually resource availability simply cannot keep up with the population growth either, even up to the point that we can't keep reaching resources faster than we use them up due to the speed of light. That's long-term, of course, but it also shows how despite the best of technology (unless we can surpass the speed of light), resources cannot keep up with exponential population growth. Short term, maybe... but we'd have to keep up the resource production for every resource we need, despite having to use lower grade sources of it. Note that one of the resources is arable land... past civilizations have imploded due to arable land issues.

[padren]

Are you advocating mandatory birth control?

 

Also, how have you established that the demand is more than potential supply?

I can't speak for Moon, but I personally am not advocating mandatory birth control. I am only advocating a better understanding and exploration of the topic.

 

No, I don't believe that.

Okay, so to suggest that is not the case, then it is reasonable to assume we can maintain our current population, and current rates of consumption overall, and maintain both purely from renewable resources? I think it is potentially possible, but not currently viable without massive changes to our infrastructure and choices in consumables. I'm not trying to say "lulz then u think we can burn oil forever" or anything, but that it would take more than just switching from less sustainable resources to more sustainable ones, but also technological innovations that don't currently exist.

 

That's just my view (pulled out of nowhere, really), though I am curious if you could elaborate a bit because I am quite interested in the basis for your view.

 

Allows, perhaps, but the potential quality of life presently is far in excess of anything I'll ever experience (not possessing a billion dollars of disposable income), so I don't really see much benefit in increasing those "options".

 

Fair enough, at the very high end of [n] the "+" component is pretty much negligible, though I doubt either of us could imagine a world where everyone has a billion dollars of disposable income unless inflation gets really bad

 

I suppose it's a difficult part of the question because we can talk about reducing consumption, improving efficiency, but "survival" is a tricky term in itself. When increasing your resources allows you to reduce the risk of contracting a fatal illness, being able to definitely say what bare essentials are needed to survive becomes ambiguous.

[Sayonara]

I just don't understand how you can attribute such resource depletion to population numbers when you can go to any food-service facility such as restaurants and supermarkets and see for yourself how much food is thrown away hourly. Don't blame people for eating too much fish when they don't even get to eat most of it before it gets thrown away.

Because it's not a matter which is determined by looking at sloppy business practices. It's a matter which is determined by studying the appropriate ecological models and applying them to the available data.

 

It doesn't matter to the carry capacity of the planet whether or not the fish gets eaten. Once it's out of the water and its head gets stoved in, it's out of the game.

 

We humans number about 7 billion, and if we each weigh about 100 kg, that would be 700 million tons of human biomass. So we're using up about 0.044% of the biomass and would have to multiply by about 2.3 thousand times our population to use it all. So therefore given these totally ridiculous assumptions, it would take 525 years or so before we occupied the entire biomass of the earth, no bacteria, plants or animal, nothing but humans left. To keep going past that, we'd have to actually increase the total of earth's biomass just to have the biomass for the humans.

Not exactly. To keep increasing our population, we'd need to get more biomass from somewhere. To just "keep going" we could eat each other

[Moontanman]

Are you advocating mandatory birth control?

 

No, but I think it will eventually get to that, if we stay on the earth some sort of population control will happen.

 

Also, how have you established that the demand is more than potential supply?

 

Not potential, available supply.

[padren]

Not exactly. To keep increasing our population, we'd need to get more biomass from somewhere. To just "keep going" we could eat each other

Admittedly off topic:

I never thought of that, but now that you mention it, it would be a pretty interesting topic for a scifi story. I know I'd read "Post-Singularity Zombie Cyborg Cannibals" and the eventual sequel "Post-Singularity Zombie Cyborg Cannibals In Space" in one sitting each. As a singularity outcome, it makes gray goo seem pretty tame.

[Moontanman]

I can see it now, 20 million years from now, all animal life is gone except for human descendants. We have evolved to occupy most of the large animal ecological niches. Grazing animals to predators, all descended from humans after they caused the extinction of all large animals and society collapsed back to totally primitive and it started out because humans had to hunt and eat other humans to survive! As the ecology slowly recovered humans started to live different life styles of plant eaters and meat eaters and so evolution goes... Bud the C.H.U.D. B)

[jackson33]

Yes what a living hell that would be, but your point is still that we should breed till we are shoulder to shoulder across the globe?[/Quote]

 

Well Moon, you would have to ask those living in Mumbia or Kalkate, that are living under those conditions today. Since India is a reasonably free country, those folks are not forced to live there and must be happy.

 

I'm not sure where you picked up a "point" on my beliefs for human "breeding". However IMO, this should be up to the Society, but limited to discussion, HONEST education and NOT mandated. For instance in the US, we give tax deductions for EACH child born or supported. Would you like to go on record to dissolve that deduction?

 

They still need natural resources, they get them from outside the city, eventually the cities will not be able to live off the surrounding land, i honestly do not see your point. [/Quote]

 

Poor argument; Today most resources already come from distant places. Most food products you use any one day, has come from some distant place, fuels for your heat/auto sometimes water (Southern California for instance) comes from distant places and even parts of your car, TV or dishwasher were produced overseas.

 

jackson33, no one has said the earth cannot support 7 billion people, read the thread again. The OP says the earth can continue to support an increasing population forever, it demonstrably cannot. [/Quote]

 

Your a retired(?) 55 year old and I'm somewhat older. Some "over population" advocates have been saying population growth was not sustainable, since there were 2B people on this earth (you know this), it was a MYTH then and remains one today, title of the thread.

 

No doubt, there is a number where humans could not support increasing populations. My objection is what that number might be and those continuing to try and establish their own number, for some personal reason or fit into there political/social agenda.

 

What would be your point?[/Quote]

 

That's a lot of ants and felt it was an interesting item to throw in. Think about it, if you weigh 250 pounds, there might be 12,500 pounds of ants sustaining life on the same planet, then the 30% of land mass (opposed to oceans).

 

We agree then.[/Quote]

 

Probably not and I should probably take this to a new thread; I was trying to soften your religion comments, when no one had mentioned religion. I would agree that leaders in many religions oppose any form of birth control, but would argue their right to those opinions/preaching's. As think 'need' mentioned, there is no reason to abort a child because someone FEELS the planet is over crowded, it's simply not true and a MYTH.... Living older has probably more to do with population growth than ANYTHING else, but I'm not going to support euthanasia.