The Population Bomb.

[GregBussey]

I heard somewhere that if you took all the people in the world today (6,973,738,433) and stuffed them all into Texas (7,307,017,881,510 square feet of land), every man, woman and child would have their own 1,048 square feet of living space, leaving the rest of the planet uninhabited and available for food, water and oxygen production. Overpopulation my eye.

 

[JimG]

I heard somewhere that if you took all the people in the world today (6,973,738,433) and stuffed them all into Texas (7,307,017,881,510 square feet of land), every man, woman and child would have their own 1,048 square feet of living space, leaving the rest of the planet uninhabited and available for food, water and oxygen production. Overpopulation my eye.

Yes, despite the lingering babble about overpopulation, the most serious threat to humanity in the near future will be underpopulation.

 

[suzyq_psu]

Total land area is 150 million sq km and about 50 million sq km are deemed agricultural land comprised of about 1/3 cultivatable for produce and 2/3 for grazing livestock. That is to say, there is approx 12.5 billion acres of agricultural land in the world (approx 250 acres per sq km). There are 7 billion people. That’s less than 2 acres per person to grow vegetables and graze livestock for each person’s annual food supply. Think you could personally self-sustain on that amount of property? The current world population growth is about 1% which if it were to remain at the level would take about 70 years to double the population, so a kid born today would depend on less than an acre for food by the end of their lifetime.

savvyhousekeeping.com/how-many-acres-for-self-sufficiency/

Here’s an interesting graphic as an answer to your question. Also that’s 2 acres for a family of four, not just for a single person It can be done, but you have to make fishers of men.

 

[wynnejj]

savvyhousekeeping.com/how-many-acres-for-self-sufficiency/

Here’s an interesting graphic as an answer to your question. Also that’s 2 acres for a family of four, not just for a single person It can be done, but you have to make fishers of men.

Fishers of men? Are you suggesting more priests? That’s an interesting concept.

When I think of overpopulation, I immediately think of wolves. They have limited food supply. Their wolf packs cannot grow to herd size. Did you know that only the alpha male & female mate with each other? That is how natural selection has solved their overpopulation problem.

So according to your source, each person needs about 1/2 acre. So world population would have to quadruple. At a world population growth rate of 1%, that would occur in about 144 years based on the rule of 72.

 

[wynnejj]

I heard somewhere that if you took all the people in the world today (6,973,738,433) and stuffed them all into Texas (7,307,017,881,510 square feet of land), every man, woman and child would have their own 1,048 square feet of living space, leaving the rest of the planet uninhabited and available for food, water and oxygen production. Overpopulation my eye.

32 feet x 32 feet = 1024 sq ft. That’s quite a spread you got there, Tex.

 

[suzyq_psu]

Fishers of men? Are you suggesting more priests? That’s an interesting concept.

When I think of overpopulation, I immediately think of wolves. They have limited food supply. Their wolf packs cannot grow to herd size. Did you know that only the alpha male & female mate with each other? That is how natural selection has solved their overpopulation problem.

So according to your source, each person needs about 1/2 acre. So world population would have to quadruple. At a world population growth rate of 1%, that would occur in about 144 years based on the rule of 72.

Not sure how you got that I was suggesting more Priests…however more would be nice I’m glad you didn’t take my concept literally though

I was merely trying to point out that people will have to learn to grow their own food.

As for your comment about the wolves Interesting information. Did you also know that whiptail lizards, aphids, some bees wasps and hornets, some fish and water fleas reproduce by parthenogenesis? When I think about overpopulation I think of what they must have to go through to be so adaptive!

Last time I checked I was not a wolf or an aphid. Whew!

 

[wynnejj]

Not sure how you got that I was suggesting more Priests…however more would be nice I’m glad you didn’t take my concept literally though

I was merely trying to point out that people will have to learn to grow their own food.

As for your comment about the wolves Interesting information. Did you also know that whiptail lizards, aphids, some bees wasps and hornets, some fish and water fleas reproduce by parthenogenesis? When I think about overpopulation I think of what they must have to go through to be so adaptive!

Last time I checked I was not a wolf or an aphid. Whew!

When I think of “fishers of men”, I think of Our Lord telling St Peter that He would make him a “fisher of men”. It suggests priesthood and evangelization to me.

The wolf comment was simply to show that nature’s self-correcting answer to overpopulation problem is basically abstinence. I thought it in line with the suggestion of more priests. I thought it also in line with the Catholic idea of “responsible parenthood” which only allows for some form of abstinence to limit family size for serious reasons.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

One of the key failures of the “population bomb” kind of thinking is the assumption that there will never be any more smart people.

The “Malthusians” believe that they themselves are the last of the smart people. And that all of the useful inventions and helpful ideas have already been thought of.

[Not to mention that we will very soon run out of natural resources … you would get the idea that wood grows on trees … no wait; it does. Well what about copper; they find more. Well, what is the Planet Earth made of anyway? … oh, molten metal … so … there is more “out there”. ]

These self-appointed elites really believe that they hold all of and the end of the world’s wisdom.

Instead of educating people in science and math and in creative thinking, they prefer to dumb people down.

And instead of working to improve the situations of people in the world, they choose instead to put limits on accomplishment by others.

[And, you know, if you build something RADICALLY new … like an apartment house … a house with more than one floor … you can actually achieve a higher population density … OR, give people more than 32 x 32 = 1024 square feet! Yes! … you can actually live in a high rise building … if you want to. So … we’re not actually limited to only 1024 square feet! What an innovation. Not being really limited.]

 

[manualman]

32 feet x 32 feet = 1024 sq ft. That’s quite a spread you got there, Tex.

OK, smart Alec, double the size of Texas and give everybody 2,043 SF per person. Still sound cramped and inhumanly unliveable? That’s the precise population density of Cook County, IL where I live. Yes, that includes the high rises of Chicago, but also includes vast unbroken tracts of forest preserve, large amounts of non-residential industrial base, commercial use and even a small amount of farmland still.

quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17/17031.html

Do I suggest that we really cram everybody into that size space? Of course not. But we can distribute metropolitan areas broadly across this planet such that they are in reasonably proximity to natural resources and arable land instead. In fact, that’s largely what we HAVE done…

For those still determined for some reason to fit the planet into Texas, if the above guy’s math is right and the density is 1,024SF/person, that coincidentally is about the population density of New York City.
quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

 

[Monte_RCMS]

OK, smart Alec, double the size of Texas and give everybody 2,043 SF per person. Still sound cramped and inhumanly unliveable? That’s the precise population density of Cook County, IL where I live. Yes, that includes the high rises of Chicago, but also includes vast unbroken tracts of forest preserve, large amounts of non-residential industrial base, commercial use and even a small amount of farmland still.

quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17/17031.html

Do I suggest that we really cram everybody into that size space? Of course not. But we can distribute metropolitan areas broadly across this planet such that they are in reasonably proximity to natural resources and arable land instead. In fact, that’s largely what we HAVE done…

For those still determined for some reason to fit the planet into Texas, if the above guy’s math is right and the density is 1,024SF/person, that coincidentally is about the population density of New York City.
quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3651000.html

Which PART of New York City?

New York City has many different population densities.

[What if you go to a triplex … 3,000 square feet?]

[There used to be a chicken commercial … “parts is parts” … ]

 

[manualman]

The link shows my source. That appears to be total footprint area of the city limits divided by population. Obviously the high density residential areas are often MUCH higher in density since there are industrial and commercial areas of the city that have zero residents. But the census data is for the city as a whole.

 

[wynnejj]

OK guys. The reason I make so light of the Texas world population city proposal is that it is not an issue when it comes to overpopulation at all. From my perspective, we’ve already shipped everybody to the moon, and the earth is a totally agricultural planet. My concern is population growth versus agricultural acreage / person for their food only.

Here’s the thing. The Catholic answer seems to say that married couples should be generous with having children and only limit family size via periodic abstinence for serious reasons only. Else, don’t get married and remain celibate. This prescription will certainly handle issues of overpopulation if it occurs in any area. That is, married couples would use NFP due to inability to meet the needs of additional children, and many will opt not to marry voluntarily if family hardship is too widespread. There’s no rocket science here. In other words, one only hits the brakes when absolutely needed. Concern about what might happen based on population projections is unnecessary until you actually approach the population problem in your area.

Population control folks would say that if everyone followed this prescription, one can assume the UN high projection which will double the population in around 75 years and presumably would quadruple in 150 years. Given that the current world population has approximately 2 acres of agricultural land per person, and given that 1/2 acre is needed to minimally support each person, then we have a short span of time to radically increase the percentage of agricultural land in the world or to increase crop yields without depleting nutrients in the soil. Or we will have to advance techniques to manufacture fertile soil. All is do-able, but it does not boil down to “Overpopulation is a Myth” in the sense that it could never happen … which is the sense that those who use this phrase use it.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Interesting discussion on natural resources … and their availability … and et cetera.

Get a world map and draw a line from Alberta, Canada … down through Butte, Montana … down through the Texas oil fields … and down through the copper mines of Chile. [And you can extend that line north to the oil and gas fields of Alaska and northern Canada, as well.]

What you find are HUGE concentrations of oil, copper, more oil, and more copper.

Interspersed with large finds of uranium, rare earth elements, and all sorts of other minerals. Boron. You name it.

Huge.

The point is that this particular chain along that line are minerals brought out of the earth by volcanic and tectonic plate movement activity. The Earth is constantly renewing itself and at the same time disgorging vast quantities of every kind of element … which can be turned into extremely valuable and useful materials including energy that we can use to make into useful products.

The earth is not only NOT limited, but is constantly providing us with more and more supplies of useful natural resources.

 

[manualman]

Wynnej,
I’m glad you’re concerned about the pending conversion of the entire planet to a faithful practice of catholic moral theology. We should have such problems!

You express yourself quite well and generally think clearly, but you’re manufacturing a problem that doesn’t and isn’t likely to exist for the foreseeable future. The facts on the ground TODAY are that the entire developed world is in a demographic pattern of long term population decline (apart from immigration) via sub-2.1 TFR. The culture of the developed world and it’s depressive effect on TFR is rapidly spreading to even the far extents of the third world and there is every reason to expect that they will in a few short decades be below 2.1 TFR as well.

Even the lowest UN projection assumes that the developed world TFRs will rebound to near replacement rate (2.1) in a few decades, an assertion with zero basis in empirical observation. It is a fanciful presumption, not a data-based expectation.

Those who still say that Earth faces a “population bomb” problem are as foolish as the man who has been fired from his high end job with a severance package that keeps paying his salary for 9 months and continues to act and spend like he’s rich even when the end of the gravy train is clearly in sight. Like him, we can put blinders on and only notice that our population this year still grew higher than last years and refuse to look ahead and plan for the change that is clearly ahead. Or we can use our intellects and recognize that the doomsayers are dead wrong and that the problem that REALLY faces us ahead is how to keep civilization and industrial economics stable and effective in a long term population decline. I’m not sure we’re up to it and I’m DEFINITELY not going to participate in exacerbating that decline by encouraging people to have smaller families or exporting condoms to the third world in the name of some fictional global “population bomb” that is never going to go off.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

OK guys. The reason I make so light of the Texas world population city proposal is that it is not an issue when it comes to overpopulation at all.

The “fitting everyone in Texas” argument is silly, and actually demonstrates that one simply has an egregious lack of knowledge on the subject. Example: let’s say we put everyone in Texas. Imagine the fossil fuel resources necessary to ship agricultural products from half way around to the world where nobody lives to Texas. Examples like this treat finite resources as infinite.

My concern is population growth versus agricultural acreage / person for their food only.

That’s effectively the issue, as well as the resources necessary to produce that food.

Many of the examples used, such as how many acres of food per person, assume certain things. One example is the assumption of crop yield, which assumes modern methods that require large (name removed by moderator)uts of fossil fuels to get that yield. Another assumption is that all plant-eating animals are stricken from the earth. Along that line is that all humans are vegan. If herbivores exist, then they compete with humans, and many of those herbivores that we eat require far more land area to exist than humans do.

I cringe at these discussions because of reasons like the above. People just blow off other people’s views without having an ounce of understanding of the issue.

 

[wynnejj]

What is funny is that I’m not in disagreement with anyone on this discussion thread really. JimG is concerned about the population decline. Me too. Monte says technology & energy will save the day even if we were growing the population. I can see many reasons why that should be the case, if we find our answers by the deadline. Manualman says there is no deadline in the foreseeable future. I say there is a deadline, which gets deferred as agricultural technology meets the challenge, but is definitely there. I say that that deadline would be in the foreseeable future, if it were not for the fact that the world has taken an unnatural course change by voluntarily limiting family size. Manualman says that urbanization naturally means smaller family size anyway… it’s not really unnatural. Tell that to a young adults raging hormones. One can say that urbanization is tough on large families, but that is true on the man’s sex drive that has not changed one iota from the good ole days when we were primarily agrarian societies. Where we seem to have a stumbling block are these UN projections. I say look at the blue line which charts actual empirical data. Wouldn’t you say that the red line extrapolation of the UN high projection represents what should be REALLY happening if it were not a radical course change in societies values about the need to artificially limit family size? Wouldn’t you say that we were heading toward an overpopulation issue in about 200 years if we were on the UN high road?

 

[wynnejj]

Those who still say that Earth faces a “population bomb” problem are as foolish as the man who has been fired from his high end job with a severance package that keeps paying his salary for 9 months and continues to act and spend like he’s rich even when the end of the gravy train is clearly in sight.

Huh? Population Control folks could use your analogy, for sure…
If the high end job is high tech agricultural and 9 months salary is the end of food production capability of the world, and one continues to spend / feed like he’s rich and can afford to raise a large family when the end of the food supply is clearly in sight, then those who still say the Earth does not face a population bomb are foolish.

 

[wynnejj]

I cringe at these discussions because of reasons like the above. People just blow off other people’s views without having an ounce of understanding of the issue.

I cringe mostly because I believe that our defenders of the faith often mock population control concerns when the very Catholic concept of “responsible parenthood” - the regulation of birth to limit family size for serious reasons via some form of abstinence - recognizes overpopulation. When the increased emphasis on environmental concerns, echoed by the Vatican as much as secular leadership, are largely concerned with over-utilization of resources in the face of impending overpopulation. Why? Because overpopulation means not enough resources for the population.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The planet Earth has infinite resources.

But, “smart people” keep insisting that we have run out of ideas. That there never will be any more smart people.

[OK, how can this finite planet have infinite resources? Because the Earth itself virtually vomits out vast wealth on a daily basis … through volcanic action, for example … through tectonic energy releases, for example … through the releasing of energy from deep within the planet itself, for example … and by bombardment by cosmic rays and by solar corpuscles and by solar energy and by all sorts of other energy forms that come from outside the planet. AND, by encouraging people to learn what those resources are and how to develop them and apply them.]

[Instead, what we are doing is killing our new people off at a staggering rate. We have killed 50 million Americans ALONE … not to mention Russians, Japanese, Europeans, people of every cultural and language grouping … killing them off because we look at them as burdens instead of as potential geniuses …]

We are eating our own young.

We are killing our own babies.

God Himself gave us this planet and said to develop it.

Genesis 1: 28-30

Reminds me of the stupid “wicked, lazy, useless” ]steward who buried his master’s money instead of using it to make more money.

Matthew 25:18 and through to Matthew 25:30 … Pretty strong stuff.

God gave us talents … and instead of using them to develop the Earth, we are using the talents to kill off one another … because we say that if we can’t think of anything to do with the talents then no once else is capable of thinking of how to develop the Earth either.

How arrogant can we be?!

 

[GregBussey]

The “fitting everyone in Texas” argument is silly, and actually demonstrates that one simply has an egregious lack of knowledge on the subject. Example: let’s say we put everyone in Texas. Imagine the fossil fuel resources necessary to ship agricultural products from half way around to the world where nobody lives to Texas. Examples like this treat finite resources as infinite.

The point is not that every one should be fit into Texas. The argument merely provides an easy way to visualize that the earth has plenty of room for everyone. Since everyone could theoretically fit into Texas (which is a mere 1.06% of earth’s habitable land), then we could theoretically have 98.94% of earth’s land left over for food. The point is not where people live. The point is that we are nowhere close to some imaginary limit.

Perhaps a better argument is to consider this: World population over the last 40 years has about doubled, right? (3.7 billion then versus 7.0 billion now). As population grew, did worldwide starvation and malnutrition increase or decrease? In fact, 37% of the world’s population suffered hunger in 1970 but only 16% suffered hunger in 2009. Therefore, higher population = less starvation. Why is that so? Because people are a resource. The more people we have, the more problem-solvers we have, the more innovators, the more laborers.