[Frank Stearns]

"MarkK" writes:


In the early 1970s Paul Erlich, et al, predicted dire, terrible things
would occur
by the year 2000. Those things -- wide-spread food riots, life spans in
1st World
countries dropping to 45, etc -- never happened.

snips


but how much land area does it take to supply food and clean water and
energy dispose of the waste from those folks?

and how many fish can you take from the sea before it no longer regenerates?

I don't think land area is the limiting factor. I'm not sure what is
though..

It is of course many things, and in some areas of the planet some things are more
acute than others.

The "carrying capacity" of 50-60 billion is doable but probably at the great cost of
some pretty massave macro engineering projects.

The point is that with current technology, it's likely we could accommodate quite a
few more folks. let's say 10B total over 30 years, not to mention new technologies
as yet not widely available: say, super-clean fission, or even the elusive fusion
finally comes to pass. Heck, even solar advanced enough to make economic sense (at
the present 80 cents/KwHr, it really doesn't make much sense now, but that might
change). Full-blown Nanotechnology as envisioned by Eric Drexler and others could be
a complete game-changer.

The jump from 5B to 7B took 40 years, though leaping to 12B was forecast in 30
years. That ramp might be just as shallow now, perhaps even dipping a bit; I admit I
don't know.

As far as the "wrong" people having babies... I understand the point, but uh oh, you
could sure get in some trouble for that.... Who decides?

But find a way to make those populations prosper, and they too will start having
fewer babies.

And don't forget those who've looked at a larger time scale, say to the year 3000,
and how we might be having serious issues with *too little* population growth.

Interesting stuff, indeed, but I need to get back to some editing and mixing.
There! I tied this to audio. :/

Frank
Mobile Audio
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