posted
That's assuming we've already reached carrying capacity, which is rather in question. On many measures, we're perfectly capable of supporting the population of the earth today -- we can produce enough food, we have enough water, there's plenty of oxygen, et cetera. Now, many of those necessities do not reach some people, but that's a problem with distribution, not quantity.
And we probably can double the carrying capacity of the earth in 150 years, at least by measures like those. The earth's carrying capacity along similar measures was, for a long time, not much more than 10 million (the number of people the earth held for a good length of time) -- perhaps even as much as 100 million, though then it would be hard to explain why we never came anywhere close to that number for a long while.
The carrying capacity nowadays is many times that, due to dint of human effort.
Yes, if the human population shoots significantly past carrying capacity, then a crash is inevitable. But increasing carrying capacity does not merely delay the inevitable. An increasing carrying capacity means the effective rate the population is approaching carrying capacity is decreased, improving the chances of leveling off. We're starting to see slowing birth rates even in some rapidly developing countries, so this might well be an accomplishable vision.
Of course, we might also end up crashing horribly, my point is that the outcome is far from foregone.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: We're using resources faster than the planet can replinish them, and creating waste faster than the planet can turn that waste back into resources.
This is why thermal depolymerization rules so very much. Oh, but it SMELLS BAD, so we just CAN'T have it! TDP could solve so many problems and extend our time here. Hopefully we'll see it become a major industrial process, and SOON, despite its stinkiness.
quote: We also need to halt population growth. As harsh as it may sound, every family with more than two children is increasing the global population. Ender's Game's child restriction laws are not too far from a necessary reality - and, as in the books, the only release on those restrictions came with the ability to colonize other worlds.
Hear, hear. I was thinking about this last night. We really need to stop breeding at such rampant levels, at least until we can get to other worlds.
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posted
Population growth is already dramatically slowing, and in particular has already slowed in just about every country where a law like that could be enforced by the international community. The best way to slow population growth isn't to try to pass a law, its to bring down trade barriers (there's a huge correlation between economic improvement and slower population growth).
edit: not to mention that population growth isn't just some variable that can be changed without significant consequence. Population in a developing country is an important resource, and artificially restricting it will likely lead to collapse. If that's what we're trying to avoid by imposing the restriction, it seems silly to induce it.
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quote:Montana, on the verge of societal collapse? Really?
Dude, have you ever spent any time there? I went to college in Montana, and I spent the first year I was there wondering how the whole state wasn't bankrupt. Which, during my third year there was a concern brought up by the state legislature.
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edit: not to mention that population growth isn't just some variable that can be changed without significant consequence. Population in a developing country is an important resource, and artificially restricting it will likely lead to collapse. If that's what we're trying to avoid by imposing the restriction, it seems silly to induce it.
Right, but DEVELOPED countries don't need a population increase. We could have Third laws here and the world would probably look much rosier. Oh, but that's impinging on an individual's reproductive rights, or course. Obviously, the needs of the individual are greater than the needs of the species as a whole.
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posted
As for carrying capacity, fugu, there are a lot of other factors - such as energy, waste, etc.
Thermal depolymerization does, indeed, rule. If we can start turning our waste into energy, a la Mr. Fusion, we'd be in a lot better shape.
As for the carrying capacity of the earth being 10 million, that's a bit far fetched. The population may have been 10 million, but the earth had resources for far more than that. There was steady population growth for thousands and thousands of years as we expanded into new areas and settled in new places.
I'm curious, though, what happened in the early part of the 1900s to prompt such a radical shift in world population change. Is there any explanation why we went from such a gradual increase to such a dramatic one in such a short period of time?
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posted
Third laws here would have essentially zero impact on world population growth. Population growth in excess of 2 children per couple is a rounding error in world population growth. Also, given the very high productivity of people in the US, it would make sense to encourage growth here if the goal is to increase world carrying capacity.
Yes, there are other issues with carrying capacity. Re: energy, we have the technology to provide enough energy for a far larger population. They're called nuclear power plants. Re: waste, we have the technology to send waste into space or use it for all sorts of other purposes. Right now that's not economically sensible, but if we start filling up, it might well be.
No, a world carrying capacity of 10 million is not far fetched. Using even slightly more modern technology the earth could sustain far more people, but for a long time we didn't have that technology. The population didn't steadily increase by most estimates, which would suggest we were at approximately capacity:
Its important to understand what it means to 'have resources for'. If we could do effortless transforms of matter between types, the capacity of the earth would be nigh limitless. If we had only the technology available twelve thousand years ago, our population would be severely constrained (quite possibly to around 10 million). The amount of 'resources' hasn't changed, but our ability to use them most definitely would have, and the ability to use them is all that matters for carrying capacity.
One of the biggest restrictions on carrying capacity at the time would be transport. A few areas of the earth can handily support large populations -- and did -- but much of the human population on earth depends on either effective storage or effective transport to get through harder periods of time. Absent those, the carrying capacity of the earth drops drastically.
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posted
Question: In those liberal/progressive Scandinavian countries where there's no crime and free education and health care for all its citizens and everything seems so rosy, don't they have a low population growth rate? I know that their model won't work for most countries in the world right now, but isn't it possible that we're all going to naturally end up that way? Can't we have a laizzes faire attitude toward population growth?
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posted
So, you're assuming we'll all naturally end up with no crime, free education, health care for all, and everything rosy?
Been watching a lot of Star Trek lately, haven't ya...
And El JT, it was 10 million not 10 billion. I understand now what he means, in that the earth could sustain a population of 10 million humans at the time, simply because the humans didn't have the technology to expand or increase further. When new technology was gained, humans used that technology to increase the carrying capacity of the world (storehouses, irrigation, transportation, medicine, etc). With more technology, more people were able to live in higher concentrations (skyscrapers, mass transit, food distribution systems, medicine, etc), allowing the capacity to increase further.
In the last 100 years, we've seen heretofore unheard of gains in both technology and population.
What triggered the growth from 1900-present? How did we manage to take between 10 and 15 thousand years to get to 1.6 billion, then only fifty years more to add another billion, and only 56 more years to add another 4 billion.
It's amazing to me how much we've grown, but hard for me to visualize a natural end to such rapid growth short of collapse.
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posted
Thanks to the great prophet we know what will happen: Earth will be abandoned in favor of dozens of planets and hundreds of moons in another solar system.
Oh yeah, somebody tell Mal to shoot the high command before they surrender at Serenity Valley, I don't want the alliance breathing down my neck.
Avatar300, who plans to stay young and live long enough to marry Kaylee and settle down somewhere far from the central planets.
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TDP could solve so many problems and extend our time here. Hopefully we'll see it become a major industrial process, and SOON, despite its stinkiness. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
