First and foremost, I must state that this write-up is hatched out of my own little brain and is not intended to be truly scientific. It probably does not even qualify as a SWAG (scientific wild-assed guess).
That said, perhaps it will ring true through plain ordinary logic with a few facts mixed in. Please let me know where I have gone wrong on this. I have attempted to deliberately over-estimate the population to come up with what would be considered a less unpleasant number by all but the most misanthropic among us.
The first number I would like to introduce is the number 30 million. All other calculations will be based on this, so I would suggest it as your first point of attack if you are trying to disagree with my findings. This number was quoted by Jared Diamond in Collapse as a high but still conservative estimate for the number of humans on the North American continent prior to European invasion and conquest. (It’s not discovery of a new place when there are already people living there.)
The next concept I would like to consider is what the total population of a hypothetical Earth would be if the humans the world over at some point in history actually all had about the same level of technology as the native North Americans prior to contact with Europe. This was clearly never the case on this planet, I realize. People in different regions had very different levels of technology and civilization. However, on my hypothetical Earth, all people share the same level of technology as the Native North Americans and have populated all major land masses except Antarctica for obvious reasons.
For this calculation, I will essentially be taking the population of North America and its land mass and performing a simple extrapolation to the world. I will be using the land masses as quoted on wikipedia, which will be another good point for dispute if you’d like to dispute this logic. This means that I am assuming a worldwide population of around 3.16 people per square mile (from 30,000,000 people / 9,500,000 square miles).
Using the number 55,419,294 square miles, I only got 175 million or so people. I did not include the tiny islands where wikipedia claimed the list might not be complete anyway. In addition, certain tropical areas would support far more people than the arctic. North America has rather a lot of arctic in Canada. So, even though Eurasia also has a lot of arctic, let’s just increase this by quite a bit to about 300 million people. It’s a rounder figure and accounts for greater density of population in some areas. It should also quiet some of the attempts to say that my number is horribly low. (It also comes closer to what I came up with in my head once going continent by continent without really knowing their sizes and has one more advantage that will come up later.)
So, now the question becomes, was that original population in North America sustainable? Well, that depends on your definitions. The Anasazi appear to have caused quite a large desert, or at least enlarged one that may have been there before. Within a thousand years of the Native American discovery of the Americas, going by the still generally accepted time frame for the discovery of about 14,000 years ago, 83% of the large North American mammal species went extinct. Also in the time frame and with similar technology, 87% of the large South American mammals went extinct.
Some might argue that that is not a proof of lack of sustainability. However, given my misanthropic principles, I think that causing mass extinctions is not a sustainable thing to do. Even the huge bison herds that greeted Europeans here may have already been in slight decline. Though shooting the bison from train windows appears to have been a far faster way to kill them off than the natives were doing.
So, I would argue that the 30 million people in North America were already not living sustainably. If true, this puts the limit that of human population that the planet can sustain long term, i.e. thousands and tens of thousands of years and longer, at something under 300 million people. It means that above 300 million people we will not be sustainable with the level of technology used by Native North Americans prior to contact with Europeans.
Currently, we have 22 times that number on the planet.
This was the other advantage of the 300 million estimate. It divides evenly into our current population of 6.6 billion. Our lifestyle today takes a far greater toll on the planet than ever before and is still only increasing our per person impact on the planet.
Is this just disasturbation? Or, might I actually have a point here? (It’s not easy living inside my brain.)
September 14, 2007 at 10:14 |
I have been asked whether the sustainable population number is an active goal or just for the sake of argument.
To that I would respond that for me, it is primarily for the sake of argument. I have made a permanent decision not to procreate, making me a member of the voluntary human extinction movement.
However, I am interested in the number of people the planet can truly support. My gut feel is that the number is probably closer to 6 or 60 million than it is to 6 billion.
There are a number of ways we can get to that point:
1. We could limit our population voluntarily by having zero or one child per family.
2. We can continue to cut into the rainforest, unleashing horrific viruses that mutate very quickly, as is normal for rainforest viruses. AIDS, hanta, marburg, and ebola are all examples of this type of “solution” to our problem. This would not be pleasant, to say the least.
3. We can eat out our resource base. We are already past both peak grain production and peak ocean fisheries output. Widespread starvation would then result. This will also be rather unpleasant for our species.
4. We can increase warfaring, which is already being done. Unfortunately, this tends to use even more resources than the people that have been killed off. I should note that this is another unpleasant situation.
5. We can continue to overuse fresh water. We can continue to flush our toilets, wash our cars, and hose down our sidewalks with fresh potable drinking water. We can continue to water lawns, which are a huge waste of water. We are already depleting our underground aquifers in many parts of the world more quickly than they are replenished. As has already been seen, when the water runs out, desertification and obviously reduced food production are the result. This is yet another unpleasant route to population reduction.
There is also a strong possibility that we will go through our resources and fight so vehemently that we will actually cause human extinction.
So, the question of a sustainable human population and how to get there voluntarily seems to be one of importance to our species.
Further, as we have already proven ourselves willing to take many other species down with us, it may be an important question for many other species incapable of speaking for themselves.
The sixth great extinction is already well along its way. It is already worse than the extinction that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs 65.3 million years ago. Large warm blooded species tend to fare poorly in mass extinctions. Humans are a large warm blooded species.
I think the question needs to be asked and answered and a means to get to that population as painlessly as possible found.
September 21, 2007 at 12:14 |
Here is a good graph of human population over time, along with a brief discussion of the planet’s carrying capacity of humans. Unfortunately, I am still having trouble finding a scientific study estimating the number of people that the planet truly can support.
http://tinyurl.com/4yxue
October 4, 2007 at 09:34 |
I think you are right on track. My reference point/analysis is not any more “scientitific” than yours, as it is based on observatoin of our world and society today and a few very memorable learning experiences or books over the years. These include a beginning college biology class where population curves was discussed in the context of resources vs. sustainabiliity, a very technical/analytical book I have from a MIT study in the 70’s and observation over the last 30 years or so on what is going on with our environment.
The Green movement gaining momentum now focusing on global warming seems to finally be a step in the right direction, but I think in the end, only another incremental step that could exacerbate the final day of reckoning. Historically people have been able to capitalize on technology improvements to be mroe and mroe efficeint, but this has just fostered more and more per capita consumption.
I believe that humanity WILL arrive at a sustainable population, and I think the numbers are probably fairly close to what the author states. However, I think the ways we will get there are basically just two… By choice and relatively painlessly or imposed on us and a Mad Max scenario. I don’t believe that the disease scenario will solve the problem, as at best it wipes out half or so of our population, we are still over sustainability and can reproduce back to original levels in a generatio nor two……..less than 50 years. Not to mention the horrible pain an suffering that in the end does nothing to solve the core problem.
The By-Choice solution might seem draconian, but could be essentially painless, and is based on a simple fact… Our population could drop from the billions to ZERO in about one hundred years with one change…No Reproduction. In the same manner, if worldwide for one or two generations if we limited reproduction to only a very small percenttage of people, we would be where we needed to be for many hundreds of years.
There are a million ways this could be done that would be3 very good for the earth, for humanity in the long term and for individual people. If 90-95 percent of people did not reproduce for one or two generations (40 years or so), we would set in motion a process where the population would undergo a smooth, steady decline. I think it would be a very pleasant experience for humanity. In this scenario, every child born would be treated as a treasure, not just by parents buty by the whole society. With gradual decline, no longer would there be a need for everyone to compete for their piece of the pie…resources would become more and more plentiful over time… Therefore, incentives for greed would decrease. We would no lnoger need to be continously creating more infrastructure such as highways, buildings, etc. as there would be less and less requirement. We could instead focus on sustaining what was good and already in place. The huge amount of resources and time parents currently expend on raising children could instead be utilized to have a much easier life over time, as existing intrastructure became more and more available, less and less utilized.
The one part of this that would be a very hard sell indeed would be one fact…. It would probably be impossible to attain without some from of mass sterilization. Further, the single biggest outcry against the idea would probably be that such an idea would be very difficult to do without some form of elitism…. The rich repsoduce, the poor don’t….
Underlying all the difficulty will be man’s biological urge to resproduce.
I believe that the issues above could be addressed, if enough people recognized the criticality of doing so. I don’t believe that mass sterilization should be mandatory for individuaals, nor should it be allowed to be set up so that only the rich are exempt… Some might argue that the rich shold be allowed to reproduce as they have shown themselves to be the most successful, I would argue back that monetary success is only one way to succeed, and only by the existing socioeconomic order. In order for hmanity to be in the best positiono for long-term survival, we must encourage as much genetic diversity as possible.
I believe that the way to do it is at an age where people can both rerproduce and make decisions for themselves, say 15 or 16, they be given the choice to be sterilized if they desire. Doing so should bring HUGE positive incentives…. Free college education, free food and housing, or something of that order. This should coincide with massive public awareness efforts, similar to non-smoking initiatives in the U.S. Initially, it would be difficult for the world to bear the costs of these incentives, but over a short period, decreasing demands on infrastructure and increased resources not devoted to child-rearing would offset this. Also, I don’t believe that people are inherently lazy…. Even if all basic needs were met, most people would conitinue to work or otherwise contribute to society, simply because they want to contribute.
Perhaps the positive incentives could be combined with a lottery type system that granted the ame incentives to a very small percentage of people, to offset elitist tendencies.
Another huge benefit of this :soft landing” approach would be that with a graduated yet rapid drop in population, there would be a large population over a significatn period of time available to help in reducing harm to the environment of such an event. A very sizeable part of the populatio could devote itself to rehabilitating our existing infrastructure such as factories, nuclear power plants, dams, etc. to minimize long-term damage to the environmet. If we lost the necessary amount of population overnight, the environmental damage would be monumental; if we “withdrew” slowly, we could mimize that damage and rehabilitate existing infrastructure to support us for a very long time.
I believe my utopian thoughts on this are very attainable…. All it would take is an in-your-face complete dedication to one concept.. Thre rest would fall into place. And for our posterity, life would be an amazing thing, where people could capitalize on all the advances that have been made by our ancestors and have a life where they have all of their basic needs easily met, so that they can devote their lives to things they really want to do, AND that advance the human race at a rate multiples over what can be attained now.
I envisio those children born in this environment to be blessed beyond belief. They would be treasured beyoned belief by the whole society, which in turn would lead to high self-esteem and maximum self-attainment.
All of this with almost zero pain and suffering by anyone, anywhere.
Sorry this got so long-windred. Also, PLEASE feel free to shoot any holes in my arguement you can find. I see a catastrophic situation, developing, and only see one good answer. I would love it if someone saw a major flaw in my arguement, as it would tell me I need to relook the whole topic and reeformulate my thoughts….
Please feel free to respond directly to me at richarddeanlambert@hotmail.com
October 4, 2007 at 09:37 |
Per my previous long post, one more apology, for the spelling mistakes. I typed this in one sitting, with very small text on my computer, so could not see what I had typed very well and they slipped through….
October 28, 2007 at 06:05 |
Looks like I’m onto something here. Too bad for all of us.
http://tinyurl.com/35xmpz
October 29, 2007 at 01:41 |
Scott – you say: “I am still having trouble finding a scientific study estimating the number of people that the planet truly can support.”
I say it is “impossible” to have a study of this issue. Same with climate warming. You can’t do a controlled group, you can’t do a before/after without a control.
All you have is “modeling”. Thats not a bad thing, just wondering what you are actually looking for as my google search on “carrying capacity earth” turned up 775,000 entries.
Many experts can be found along with their assumptions and equations. Turns out these various experts put the CC at from 1 billion to 44 billion, with the average estimates between 6-9 billion. What I find interesting is even the 44 billion seems “limited” as its model calculates the 2500 calories per day per human and divides that into the ariable land mass of the world and assumed best agricultural practices. I assume that number would go up if he had included hyponics??? In other words, 2 things==the CC is unknowable, estimates are based on what assumptions you make.
Watching tv over the weekend, sure seems like the ocean fisheries will collapse before global warming takes over? Huge and growing dead areas of the ocean, native fish species decimated or gone and replaced with jellyfish. I guess thats why the models are based on agriculture and not fishing====AND THEN COMES BEE COLONY COLLAPSE!
I don’t think we have to worry about global warming. We will do our culture in alot sooner than that!!!!!
October 29, 2007 at 02:04 |
Well, if the modeling is impossible, as you say, then my extrapolation from North America at a known time of unsustainable population should be at least as correct as anything else.
As for global warming, it will accelerate any problems with the ocean. Warmer water dissolves less oxygen, thus supporting less life. The reason tropical waters are so beautifully clear is because they don’t have all of the organisms in them that temperate and colder waters do.
So, what happens as the oceans warm? The clear tropical relatively lifeless waters of the tropics move poleward. Since the oceans are widest where the planet is widest, the narrower portions closer to the poles which support the most life will continue to shrink dramatically. This will only exacerbate the problems of overfishing, just as the hypoxic dead zones caused by all of the fertilizer runoff do.
October 29, 2007 at 11:55 |
Are you sleepy?
Modeling is perfectly possible==as stated. I’ll leave it to you to reread what I think is NOT subject to proof in a scientific sense?
Re your North American extrapolation, that “model” only works to estimate a completely non-technical, non-scientific culture?==ie, totally irrelevant.
Global warming will NOT accelerte any problem with the ocean. It will merely favor certain fewer species over many others. You’d like it if you were jellyfish or phytoplankton–which may be more an issue of available nutrients rather than oxygen?
How do you define “wide” on a globe? Rotate that globe 90 dgrees and do your wide estimation again?
October 30, 2007 at 05:57 |
bobbo,
It’s only totally irrelevant if you don’t realize how much greater our per capita footprint on the planet is in a technical society such as ours. This is precisely my point, in fact. Even at a lower technology, even with a dramatically lower per capita footprint and resource usage, the planet cannot support 300 million people. Perhaps with current technology the sustainable limit will be much lower. Perhaps with current technology, 30 million would be way too many.
If you look at a globe, not a map, you will see that the polar regions have dramatically less surface area than the “wide” tropical latitudes. Cut at a nice even point using longitude lines, which are what is important here. Is there more surface area between 45 degrees N and 45 degrees S or is there more surface area above 45 degrees N and below 45 degrees S. Certainly, the surface area in the middle, the warmer latitudes, is much higher. As the waters warm to tropical temperatures farther and farther away from the equator, there will be a large loss of high oxygen ocean habitat.
You’re correct about other species in the ocean though. Unfortunately, these other species are less useful to us as a species. Many are actually life forms that were common in pre-cambrian times, were outcompeted and eaten by today’s more well-known species, and are now making a comeback. People in some areas of the world are already getting sick from the breathing the ocean spray that contains such life forms.
October 30, 2007 at 03:31 |
Scott – - do you really think a non technical/scientific culture can support more people than its opposite? One factor of sustainability is ability to grow food. Who can grow more food>>>
1-Scavengers, or
2-poke a hole in the dirt with a stick, or
3-pull a plow behind a waterbuffalo, or
4-pull a plow behind a steam engine, or
5-pull a plow behine 10 gas engines driven by gps controlled computers, or
6-create balanced paste in the laboratory?
Preventing disease is a factor in sustainability. Who can support a larger capacity>>>
1. When ill, go into a sweat lodge and wait it out, or
2- Use public health concepts to use clean water and good waste disposal, or
3-Germ theory applied and vaccines used, or
4-genetic engineering used to prevent disease(s) entirely?
And so forth. Your concept of sustainability is uniquely individualized and not cognizant of “the many factors” that affect carrying capacity?
As to surface areas, a square foot at the north pole is the same size as a square foot at the equator. Now, I’m no mathmetician, but I drew a circle and put an “X” on top of it representing the below and above 45 degrees. Looks to me the areas above and below are exactly the same size?
October 30, 2007 at 09:32 |
bobbo,
It really didn’t occur to me that anyone might think that a technical society can support more people. Remember, I’m talking about the long term. I don’t mean a generation or three. I mean thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of years. If we want to be a long lived species, we need to think in these terms. We’ve only been on the planet for at most 200,000 years. Do we want to compete with horseshoe crabs at 400,000,000? Turtles? Sharks? Or, do we want to go extinct within the next 200 years and barely make it into the fossil record?
Who can grow more food is the wrong question. The right question is who has a bigger per capita impact on the planet?
After your food is grown (and after the average 21st century american eats on the order of twice as much as necessary, you still need land for your roads. You still need land for your strip mining for metals. You still need land for mountaintop removal of coal. You still need land for far more house per person than would have been the case. You still need land for pipelines. You still need land for oil wells. You still need land for windmills (I hope). You still need land for solar panels (I hope). You still need land for petroleum refineries and patroleum byproduct production like plastics. You still need land for nuclear power plants. You still need land for waste disposal.
Do you really think that we have lower impact on the planet than pre-Columbus North Americans?
Take this quiz. Then tell me how many planet Earths we’d need if everyone lived like you. I’m down to 3.3. That is not sustainable. And, the quiz may assume that humans and the species we know we need are all that the planet needs to have. We need a healthy biosphere. I don’t know if we still have one.
http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp
As for surface area, just tell me how many square feet are 45+ degrees from the pole versus how many are within 45 degrees of the pole. Note that we are splitting the globe by latitude, not by pie chunks. This link has a good visual. Note that the surface area of the top 45 – 0 degrees comes up 2.9 E 7 square miles. The surface area of a complete hemisphere from 0 – 90 degrees, comes up 9.8 E 7 square miles, more than three times the size. So, more than two thirds (more precisely, around 70%) of the earth’s surface is between the equator and 45 degrees. Less than one third (more precisely around 30%) is above 45 degrees.
October 30, 2007 at 09:45 |
Scott, you say: “Who can grow more food is the wrong question. The right question is who has a bigger per capita impact on the planet?”==NO!
The Heading of your post and my response is to this question: “What is the Sustainable Human Population for this Planet?”
Two different questions, discussions, answers.
We must be wrapped up in some semantic miscommunication–something to do with square area of a globe vs meridians? I’ll let it go.
October 30, 2007 at 09:59 |
Sorry bobbo,
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. The sustainable human population is very much dependent on having a healthy biosphere. We are part of nature and cannot live without it.
Thus far, we have earned our name as the catastrophic cause of the sixth mass extinction on this planet. This is not sustainable. I do not believe humans can continue to kill six species an hour and survive.
We are a large warm blooded species. Large warm blooded species fare very poorly during mass extinction events. The question of ecosystem sustainability and the question of maximum sustainable human population are intimately intertwined.
For the area, it really isn’t semantic. And, it’s an important point for the oceans. You really should at least check out the link. That you speak of meridians means that you are thinking longitude, not latitude. That is likely the source of the discrepancy.
October 31, 2007 at 06:04 |
Scott–words remain a core interest of mine. What they mean and how we think with them, etc.
Just because 2 issues are intertwined, does not mean they are the same thing. Difficult to discuss/model any issue without good hard definitions as well.
Now, this is all to your request for input on how to arrive at>>>>>>>what?
A==How many humans can the earth support if the resources are roughly equally utilized by all? -or-
B==How many humans can the earth support if wildlife species are also given enough land/resources to continue in the same numbers/number of species as today/yesterday? -or-
C==How many humans can the earth support if humans have no negative (ie, discernable?) impact on the earth at all?
You slip between/among atleast these 3 different intertwined issues. I’d just like to join the discussion you actually want to have?
BTW, in the few hours I have spent googling the various “carrying capacity earth” results, none of them talk about maintaining bio-diversity. So that to me forms the core of a second interesting subject==by how much should we allow the reduction of the carrying capacity of the earth in order to maintain how much “wild” life?
The gamut is probably bookended by yourself and Bubba? You wanting all the species maintained, and Bubba wanting them all removed so that he can live in a spaceship orbiting mars?
October 31, 2007 at 08:38 |
bobbo,
From your choices of topics, C is completely impossible. A single human will have some impact on the planet, as does a single lion, a single squirrel, etc.
It’s hard for me to pick between A and B because it is at the same time, neither and both.
I do not doubt that discussions of carrying capacity have not taken all factors into account. That is one of the reasons I started this thread.
The real core question is:
How many people can this planet sustain with only minor fluctuations in the population over time, vast periods of time, time beyond any our species has dealt with before? And that is the crux.
Once the very long view is taken, millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, 4.5 billion years until the sun goes nova and engulfs the planet, real geologically significant periods of time, the question of a healthy biosphere with robust biodiversity becomes a real and serious issue.
We are linked to the other species on the planet through the food chain, the hydrological cycle, and the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchanges of plants and animals. (There are probably other more subtle links as well, but these should make the point.)
So, our real disagreement is that while you are trying to limit the scope of the conversation, I am trying to broaden it. All of the factors that go into making a habitable biosphere are intimately connected to the life span not of humans as individuals, but of humans as a species.
I also feel it is immoral to recklessly commit speciescide left and right. However, I would consider the morality of that as another topic, one about who is and who is not granted moral considerability, the buzzword used in this other type of discussion.
For this topic, I would consider the mass extinctions we cause simply as an indicator of instability in our ecosystem caused by us. in order to be sustainable for the long term, we must reach an equilibrium that results in a healthy biosphere. We’re obviously not there at present.
October 31, 2007 at 08:25 |
Scott–I agree with everything you have posted—-except—the notion I’m trying to disagree with you. I’m just trying to figure out what model of “carrying capacity” you are trying to build? Its still a bit vague—like a “garden of eden” earth?
Hypo—earth is supporting 44 Billion people–energy from the solar wind and geothermal grows and makes everything we need from advanced scientific applications. Two scenarios==A-all humans are underground and visit the surface like a theme park, the surface being a nature preserve as best as it can currently be reconstituted? B-humans all on surface and all other life forms have been eliminated except as needed by humans.
I think in both scenarios, most people would take it as “normal” and be happy. The need for “environmentalism” is indeed that it is a red flag as to how HUMANS are doing. When it comes to “CC” I do think you are combining a bit more Greenpeace preserve nature religiosity (sic!) to it. And thats ok–just another intertwined model to consider.
Let me ask you this to illustrate the above and clarify your objective: in your model, is it permissable or not to cause smallpox virus to become extinct? CC is raised, but species diversity is reduced.
From there, we can build our list? ((I’m having fun, hope you are too?))
October 31, 2007 at 09:12 |
bobbo,
In both of your scenarios, you seem to assume that we actually know what we need in order to survive and that the result will be both long lived and robust. I disagree with that assertion. I think the more likely scenarios are:
C: Humans go extinct due to our own intelligence or lack thereof, depending on your definition.
D: Human population is dramatically reduced and stabilized, either voluntarily or forcibly.
I believe D is the more optimistic scenario and results in far fewer humans than you imagine. I think C is the more likely scenario. I think we have about 200 years or less to pick one of these scenarios or have it picked for us.
Re: smallpox. Yes, that is an interesting one. Let’s table that discussion for a discussion of moral considerability. I do not know how I feel about speciescide in such a case. It is both a loss of biodiversity and a loss of something that kills us.
The answer would be much simpler for any species that is remotely intelligent. I’d be very against killing that. However, I have a normal human dislike for microscopic killers of humans. I try to get over it for intellectual conversations. However, we should remember that there are still far more unicellular species than multicellular ones.
In fact, more than 50% of the biomass of the planet is unicellular life. So perhaps the loss of a unicellular species is less valuable than the loss of a multicellular one for exactly the same reason that the loss of an individual of a species is less tragic than the loss of the entire species. I don’t know.
November 1, 2007 at 08:47 |
I can’t imagine any argument at all for keeping smallpox on the planet? Are you running for Attorney-General?
Why wouldn’t humans act like any other species?==Boom and crash to boom and crash again all depending on food and space availability? Hard to kill off a species without a conscious intent to do so? So, I would “guess” that if earth becomes human-less it would probably be some combination of disease and cold weather event?==or hot in the case of meteor strike.
So, ok, I concede your point. It is impossible for human kind to support the current numbers regardless of advances in technology and science that we currently aren’t even aware of. And given the unavoidable impact any large continuing mass of homo-sapiens would have on the ecosystem, it would additionally be immoral for us to event try!
Funny how barren couples are given so much sympathy in todays world–and how eugenics is still a no-no? Racing towards the cliff?
November 1, 2007 at 10:33 |
bobbo,
I’ve not gotten any sympathy for being a “barren couple”. Of course, when it’s voluntary there is little reason for sympathy. In fact, I get a lot of comments about people envying my lifestyle. My first answer for how to live as I do is ‘Don’t have kids!’
Short of buying one’s own 747 and hiring 3 pilots full time to fly it, there is little that most people do that is as expensive as the decision to have children.
Further, people look at me a little funny for committing to a permanent decision not to have children. No one gives a second thought to the equally permanent decision to have them. It’s not like one can return them if they change their mind. Nor can one typically hawk them on eBay. (Slightly used 3 year old for sale? Still shrink-wrapped and with the original owner’s manual? I think not.)
(rant)
What really bugs me though is that I have a feeling that there are a large number of people that grow up, get married, and pop out a litter of kids without even giving it any thought. It’s just what we’re programmed to think of as normal. So, they go through it never asking if it’s really right for them.
I know many people who do NOT fit this description and have kids. They thought about it and really wanted them. Fine. I have a problem with people that don’t even make a decision. I also have a problem with that old mistake that people think god said, ‘be fruitful and multiply’ this was actually a misinterpretation. It was supposed to be, ‘be useful and multiplex.’
(/rant)
November 1, 2007 at 05:40 |
We’re a bit off topic==maybe a new thread of “The Choice of Reproducing?”
I’ve been waiting awhile for the right time to say you have referred to being “barren” or “childless.”
Being in the same boat, I prefer “child free.” I have lost a few excellent girl friends over the issues of being an atheist, but even more for not wanting kids.
My own decision is all too characteristic. I looked at my own childhood/parents and said “Who would CHOOSE that?” Maybe just my own experience. Then there is my sisters. One is average intelligence, the other a bit smarter but not educated or interested in it. So, at an early age I said==gee, having kids is kinda marginal at best and what if the kiddie turned out to be of only average intelligence or worse yet retarded or physically damaged? A lifetime of that? NO thanks.
Yes, in an overpopulated world, we are supposed to value the genetic defective from viability onwards. Sometimes I miss not having kiddies, and then I see people who’s lives have been ruined (usually acknowledged at some level, but too often not) by their kids==and second marriages torpdeoed all the time (usually for concommitant reasons?).
One lady I knew had one kid. He was smart, healthy and I could see being a good father to him. The lady finally left me as I was not enthusiastic enough about having more kids. She wanted a small family of 4-5. So, we parted and she wound up having 6 kids in total. I’m sure she is happy, don’t know what my ultimate outlook would have been?====as I constantly post, we humans tend to accept whatever circumstances we find ourselves in-”Homo Adaptus” as I call it.
Finally connecting up and off my rant/confessional, I’m surprised the drive to have kiddies is not stronger among humans than it is? After all, it is a constant selection process? “Intertwined” with all this, always revealing to look at this difference between men and women. Men wanting women, women wanting children. Not 100%–just a bias.
November 2, 2007 at 06:01 |
bobbo,
Just to add a bit more to our tangent.
I prefer the term child free as well, but am also fine with almost any other way to word it including, but not limited to, proud Darwinian failure, the end of the line, happy, and being a programmer, the ever popular ‘I guess I worked in unix so long I became one.’
As for the choice, in my case it was somewhat easier and did not cost me any relationships. My wife and I married young, assumed we’d have kids one day, but couldn’t afford them for quite some time.
One day, I turned to my wife and said, ‘You know, we probably could afford to have kids now if we want to.’ She said, ‘Do you want them?’ I said, ‘Not really. Do you?’ She said, ‘No.’ That was easy. Years later we made the decision permanent.
Interestingly though, the idea of passing on diabetes was only a moderate concern. Bigger issues included, neither of us wanting to be parents, neither of us wanting to bring a child into the world in its present and deteriorating state, both of us recognizing that the problems of the world are all human caused, etc.
As for whether or not the child would be smart, you should take this simple, single yes/no question test. Q: I’m extra smart. Shouldn’t I pass on my genes? (I love the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement!!)
I don’t know whether I agree on the relative biases of men and women. I tend to think that intelligent species (where intelligence is not necessarily a positive quality from a Darwinian standpoint) are far more complex than that. One small hope for our most likely doomed species is our ability to overcome our biological drives.
November 23, 2007 at 10:35 |
I don’t think anyone can estimate with any confidence what the sustainable human population of the earth is. Malthus got it all wrong. The Club of Rome was way off.
You can say that it appears to be X right now, but then a new way of growing food appears, perhaps a new energy source, etc. For most people, sustainable is an aesthetic category. That is, they want to know what the limit is that will allow their standard of living to be maintained. If we move to a worldwide government of regimented slavery, probably the sustainable number would jump for any level of technology.
Ecologists look at sustainability at a more macro-level, supposedly. But humans are not bacteria. Bugs in a test tube keep reproducing until they choke themselves to death and their population crashes. Humans are more clever. I think we have a lot further to go to our limit. We have so much surplus food on this planet, it’s incredible – it’s just distributed grossly unfairly and unevenly.
It’s possible that we will reach a sustainable limit-level by pushing up against the outer envelope of possibility and being slapped down by Nature, but I doubt it. More likely, we will muddle through and arrive at a limit through a complex economic, social, and biological process.
I’m not saying that the prospect of that future society is necessarily one that would thrill me, but I don’t think we’re going to drive ourselves to extinction anytime in the near geological future. Barring an accidental full-scale thermonuclear exchange, that is. Even then – humans are more adaptable than cockroaches.
November 24, 2007 at 03:20 |
lichanos,
I appreciate the response. I know I requested it specifically. I am a bit surprised by it, given your take on the environment and habitat preservation and the amount of habitat actually preserved by humans. I was expecting a response less extreme than my own, but more in line with it than at odds with it.
I see no reason to assume that humans are any wiser. I think Malthus made two mistakes. First, he OVERESTIMATED the human population that this planet can sustain. Perhaps, like most people, he was thinking in terms of tens or hundreds of years, rather than millions. Second, I think he GROSSLY UNDERESTIMATED our willingness to steal from our children to feed ourselves.
You seem to think that the type of population growth and crash that you describe happens only to microorganisms. Unfortunately, as the reindeer on St. Matthew Island show, this happens to large mammals as well. I think we are currently at or near the peak of human population today.
I hope not to live to see the Great Human Die Off. If I do, I know, because I will make sure of it, that I will die in the first wave.
I think the die off will start with global civilizational collapse. Imagine the effects on the world economy, for example, when there are a billion climate refugees by 2050, the conservative estimate from the IPCC. Will our global economy be able to absorb that? Will we have huge wars over it? Will the wealthy nations continue to exploit the poorer nations as their people are dying and being pushed closer together by rising tides in places like Bangladesh? Some of the refugees will be in the wealthy nations. What will happen to the people in Florida and Louisiana as the storm tides surge from the likes of Katrina while the oceans continue to rise?
As for food production, we are already past peak grain production. For the last several years, we have had decreasing surpluses. These surpluses represent the robustness of society in its ability to feed itself. As the surpluses decline, we run the risk that a single drought or famine could leave us short of grain.
Further, world fisheries output has been declining since the 1980s, despite improved fishing technology. Most of the fish stocks on which we depend are already 90% dead. A billion people today depend on seafood for the primary source of protein.
Our current situation cannot possibly last. When I ask the sustainable human population, I am looking for the number that will be left after the Great Human Die Off. I think we will probably start with a dramatic crash that reduces the population by 90%. I think the population will continue to decline for some time thereafter. I do not know how soon this will be. I do not know at what level we will stop declining. I do not know if we will survive as a species at all.
One thing I’m confident of, however, is that your take on things is horribly overly optimistic and probably does not consider the real long term at all.
Lastly, when you look for species that are adaptable and likely to survive, look at the ones that have already done so for quite some time. Humans are a young species and are already showing signs of many potential reasons to go extinct. If you compare this to cockroaches, you will see that while humans have survived barely 200,000 years, cockroaches have survived for around 300,000,000 years. Just playing the odds, they are far more likely to survive another 100,000,000 years than we are.
November 24, 2007 at 02:05 |
Only humans have transmitted culture. That makes us the most adaptable animal of all, no comparison.
I don’t see myself as optimistic, but then, that’s a realitive term. Compared to you, I guess I am. I’m not claiming that the future is pretty. It’s true – our current situation cannot last. It never does. It won’t. Things are and will change.
Consider how quickly the world population recovered from WWII, or even the Bubonic Plague. (That, in a time when we were so much less sophisticated, tecnically.) I just don’t have much confidence in your prediction of a great Die Off, at least not the type you describe. True, some new plague might arise that takes a few generations to tame or to run its course, and that will be hell…Not sure what that has to do with sustainability.
November 25, 2007 at 01:54 |
You know, with a “free” energy source like the solar wind transmitted thru a space elevator or what not, the sustainable number of people would go way up.
Whats touched upon here is that people will be around for a long, long time. Whether advanced technological societies will be around is a seperate question?
It just flashed on me–another unintended consequence of the personal computer. Give it a few hundred years and all information is digital–no books for preservation and long term storage. Then a world wide magnetic pulse as in the magnetic poles switch. Instantaneously, all archived human knowledge erased.
THAT would be a challenge?
November 25, 2007 at 04:02 |
lichanos,
This is a very short term view. As yet, this has not had enough time to be proven to be a long term survival advantage. It is true that it allows us to survive in a variety of habitats. However, our very short-sighted nature may cause us to destroy all habitats in which we can survive, leaving us a very short-lived species. For real tried and proven species, look to the ones that have survived both ice ages and very warm periods. 55 MYA was warmer than any time through which we have lived. We may find out whether we are capable of surviving such an event again. Certainly, it will not be with today’s numbers. Our current population is not living sustainably. Our top-soil is being exhausted. Our aquifers are being exhausted. Ocean fisheries are being exhausted. As these resources decline, so too must our population.
bobbo,
Free energy will not give us free food. Widespread desertification will continue, even with nearly free energy. And, when looking to technology, always remember that every new technical advance has also come with unexpected consequences, often greater than the original problem to be solved. Here in NYC, cars were the solution to the problem of noise and horse manure from all of the horses. Now cars have produced problems that are worse.
I think the risk to our data is not as horrific as you make it sound. Most of the important data is backed up on media that will not be affected, I think.
November 25, 2007 at 10:22 |
I think that transmitted culture is a qualitative difference. We are not subject to the ruthless adaptation-selection pressures of other organisms.
We are exhausting some resources, not all. Remember, I’m dubious that humans will drive themselves to extinction. Much will change, however.
November 25, 2007 at 10:43 |
lichanos,
I believe our transmitted culture is a difference in magnitude rather than in kind, as evidenced by chimpanzee cultures. However, it is a very large magnitude in this case, so we’re mostly in agreement here. However, there is no evidence yet that this provides a long term survival advantage. I don’t know whether humans will drive ourselves to extinction by our cultural evolution outpacing biological evolution’s ability to adapt to us, at least for multi-cellular organisms. However, I do feel quite confident in saying that our current numbers are absolutely unsustainable. Whether or not we go extinct, there is no way this planet can support billions of humans for many generations.
So, reductions of our numbers will come from either A) voluntary population reduction B) global civilizational collapse C) thermonuclear war or other human invoked catastrophe or D) some new or increasingly virulent disease. There may be other causes. For example, global warming may well cause global civilizational collapse. However, I think most other causes are likely to end up being the impetus for one of the four choices I listed above. Correct me if I’ve missed some important ones.
November 25, 2007 at 11:00 |
I don’t need to correct you—but I will point out everything you’ve posted is mere conjecture. and Conjecture without even a model or expert/cite to support it?
In other words, nobody knows what the carrying capacity of the earth is and you get flip/floppy with the definition. Is it many generations, or millions of years? Is it with extinction of many other species down to humans and a few other species, or is it garden of eden earth==and so forth.
I wouldn’t be so quick to discount free energy either. With free energy, water is purified, hydrogen is electolysized, food can be grown from nanotubes and so forth. I think your doom and gloom conclusion is too rooted in todays technology. And YES, even NYC is much better off today than during horse and buggy days. You just went on vacation–wasn’t that nice?
The future is up for grabs. Scientific culture and human nature may get by but eventually get blown away by one of those “its not if but when” scenarios. Cant “prove” the future. After that, its attitude.
You’ve got the canoe, you’ve got the paddle—start paddling!!!!!
November 26, 2007 at 07:10 |
bobbo,
Please read the first paragraph of this post in bold right below the header. I think I freely admit that this post is all about mental masturbation and even disasturbation.
As for free energy, perhaps we’d have made a good start on that if we had spent the $500,000,000,000 – $2,000,000,000,000 on new energy sources rather than on creating the United States National Petroleum Park in the Middle East. Then maybe we’d know if it’s be the long term solution to all of our problems.
November 26, 2007 at 03:41 |
Good one Scott. I am chastised. Deeper truths appear in casual comments. Just exactly what is it that we do is not mental masturbation? But, I expose myself.
November 26, 2007 at 03:53 |
bobbo,
what is it that we do is not mental masturbation?
I don’t know, but it isn’t blogging.
October 8, 2008 at 07:28 |
Well, what I want to know how is to advertise the advantage of not having children to the mass public. If they don’t know the advantage, i think they probably won’t give a damn about the idea.
October 8, 2008 at 04:34 |
Ronny,
You will never ever succeed in getting that point across to someone who already has children. They must continue to spend their energy on self-justification and on denying that the biggest problems in the world are real. This way, they can live with their choice and not think that they’ve just dumped their children onto a planet that is not going to support this many people for much longer and will have a huge and painful population reduction.
As for those who do not yet have children, with them, perhaps there is some small hope. Continue to do your best. Many people read blogs on the internet. Pick some that are more popular than this one and post your views there.
Try Cagematch, for example. It is actually a forum. Anyone can log in there and begin new topics for discussion. And, cagematch gets the traffic everyday that this blog gets in a year. Your views will be welcome there. I’m not the only misanthrope in the bunch.
January 31, 2009 at 07:51 |
My opinion is overly simplistic, but I believe that if local resources are not sufficient for long-term sustainability of the local population, then that particular locality is overpopulated. If that was used as a standard, I doubt we could justify a global population above 300-500 million max.
February 2, 2009 at 10:18 |
Hi Kathy,
Your number of remaining humans is a bit higher than my personal highest estimate, but well inline with James Lovelock, in an interview he gave to New Scientist.
One last chance to save mankind
May 9, 2009 at 03:28 |
You have performed a valuable service with this post. My own estimate has – for the past decade – been 600 million, but we’d be nuts to push up to that level. My methodology is similar to yours and it can be read here:
http://www.evfit.com/population_max.htm
I have referenced this Misanthropic page on my own
May 11, 2009 at 09:29 |
Myrmecia,
That is a good argument you make. I think by stating that we did not get to 6.8 million via fossil fuels, you take some of the wind out of your own sails.
It is not true that we didn’t get here through fossil fuels.
All of our industrial farming enterprises rely on synthetic fertilizer. Interestingly, such fertilizer gets its nitrogen and other necessary chemicals from petroleum. It is literally a petroleum product.
As we eat our corn, wheat, etc., we are literally eating petroleum.
So, it is literally true that we indeed did get to 6.8 billion through the use of and literally by eating fossil fuels.
Thank you for a thoughtful post on your site and for the link to me from your site. I would recommend that readers of this post also read the post at Myrmecia. It’s interesting that two different methodologies came up with numbers within the same order of magnitude.
May 11, 2009 at 03:50 |
Thanks, Scott. I must apologize for the final words of my post not appearing above. I agree with your observations/comments and have made some quick amendments to my page. I agree fossil fuels have fed our 6.8m, but we have drawn down far more than just the fossil fuels as the Homo sapiens mass has expanded exponentially. If it was only fossil fuels we might just get away with it, but our destructive rampage through the biosphere has been truly opportunistic and comprehensive.
May 11, 2009 at 09:21 |
You’re absolutely right Myrmecia. We have a lot of problems in addition to fossil fuels including the additional problems from fossil fuels of fuel spills, fertilizer runoff, ocean acidification (which may leave us fishless surprisingly soon even if we stop overfishing), and global warming.
We also have reduced arable land by about 10% planet wide through desertification. We are depleting top soil at an alarming rate. We are depleting our fossil water (underground aquifers) at a tremendous rate. We are losing fresh water stores in the form of mountain glaciers that feed such rivers as the Ganges and provide fresh water to millions of humans near the Rockies, Himalayas, Andes, alps and other mountain ranges.
We are already getting less ocean fish year over year since the mid 1980s despite improved fishing technology. We are also drastically reducing our surplus grain year over year and are now down to about one season’s worth.
Yes. Truly we are in great trouble. If we do not reduce our population voluntarily and quickly through attrition, it will be reduced for us in extremely painful ways.