- Jan 28, 2003
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There are now 7 billion of us on planet earth. (see 7 billion people fuel concern over world resources - SFGate ).
Some day we will reach the limit of how many people can live on this planet, yes? We cannot continue to add people indefinately, can we?
There are a limited amount of renewable resources on earth. The problem is that, when we run low on resources, we can continue for a while in an "overshoot" condition, in which we draw down on available reserves at rates greater than what could be sustained. It can be argued that we are already in overshoot, that it would would require 1.3 planets the size of the earth to maintain the demand of our current population on the renewable resources of this planet. (see Ecological Footprint)
Let's assume we have 50 years to bring our population down to the point that it requires only 1.0 planets to maintain our population. That means we need to reduce our population to 7 / 1.3, or 5.4 billion. Suppose we were to take the huge worldwide step of requiring every couple to have on the average 1 child. Then each successive generation will be 1/2 the size of the previous generation. How long will that take to fix the problem?
Let's simplify and do a quick calculation. Assume there are currently 2 billion people over 50 (call them "generation 1"), 2 billion between 25 and 50 ("generation 2"), and 3 billion people between 0 and 25 ("generation 3"). Now assume that in 25 years, everybody over 50 will die, everybody in generation 2 lives on, and everybody under 25 lives on and will have their 1 and only allowed child on their 25th birthday. Then, 25 years from now, there will be 2 billion people of generation 2, 3 billion of generation 3, and 1.5 billion of the new generation 4, for a total of 6.5 billion people on earth.
Repeat the same assumption 25 years later. Generation 2 then dies, the 3 billion people of generation 3 and 1.5 billion of generation 4 live on, and generation 5 is added with .75 billion. Now we have reached 5.3 billion, just under our 5.4 billion limit.
The problem is worse. Most of our agriculture depends of oil and natural gas, much of which will be gone in 50 years. If much of the green revolution is lost, because we no longer have the petroleum to fuel it, must we cut down much more than the back-of-the-envelope calculation here?
Enforcing an average of no more than one child per couple is a huge undertaking, but the calculations show something like that may be necessarily. The alternative is a huge die-off, as we would then depend on a rising death rate to bring population down to manageable levels.
Should we be asking our governments to study this problem in detail, and if we really need to reduce to 1 child or less per family for the next 50 years, to begin a program to enforce that?
Some day we will reach the limit of how many people can live on this planet, yes? We cannot continue to add people indefinately, can we?
There are a limited amount of renewable resources on earth. The problem is that, when we run low on resources, we can continue for a while in an "overshoot" condition, in which we draw down on available reserves at rates greater than what could be sustained. It can be argued that we are already in overshoot, that it would would require 1.3 planets the size of the earth to maintain the demand of our current population on the renewable resources of this planet. (see Ecological Footprint)
Let's assume we have 50 years to bring our population down to the point that it requires only 1.0 planets to maintain our population. That means we need to reduce our population to 7 / 1.3, or 5.4 billion. Suppose we were to take the huge worldwide step of requiring every couple to have on the average 1 child. Then each successive generation will be 1/2 the size of the previous generation. How long will that take to fix the problem?
Let's simplify and do a quick calculation. Assume there are currently 2 billion people over 50 (call them "generation 1"), 2 billion between 25 and 50 ("generation 2"), and 3 billion people between 0 and 25 ("generation 3"). Now assume that in 25 years, everybody over 50 will die, everybody in generation 2 lives on, and everybody under 25 lives on and will have their 1 and only allowed child on their 25th birthday. Then, 25 years from now, there will be 2 billion people of generation 2, 3 billion of generation 3, and 1.5 billion of the new generation 4, for a total of 6.5 billion people on earth.
Repeat the same assumption 25 years later. Generation 2 then dies, the 3 billion people of generation 3 and 1.5 billion of generation 4 live on, and generation 5 is added with .75 billion. Now we have reached 5.3 billion, just under our 5.4 billion limit.
The problem is worse. Most of our agriculture depends of oil and natural gas, much of which will be gone in 50 years. If much of the green revolution is lost, because we no longer have the petroleum to fuel it, must we cut down much more than the back-of-the-envelope calculation here?
Enforcing an average of no more than one child per couple is a huge undertaking, but the calculations show something like that may be necessarily. The alternative is a huge die-off, as we would then depend on a rising death rate to bring population down to manageable levels.
Should we be asking our governments to study this problem in detail, and if we really need to reduce to 1 child or less per family for the next 50 years, to begin a program to enforce that?