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#47 – bobbo,
Well, if it’s all about throwing money at the problem, you may be interested to know that some number of years ago, it was determined that the value of services that a healthy biosphere provides to us free of charge, in terms of fresh water, clean air, etc., is about $30,000,000,000,000 / year. That’s thirty trillion for those who can count zeros, yes trillion with a T, every year. Can we afford the $30T/yr price tag? Can we really do it all without a healthy biosphere even if we throw $30T at it every year? I doubt it.
I’d never want a house in Texas.
Nobody has come up with the obvious answer, put everyone in the world on universal healthcare.
All well and good but I guess as soon as we put a bureaucrat in charge who lives and who dies then we’ll start eliminating the Tiny Tims of the world. Maybe this would benefit society by strengthening the gene pool though and who knows “Ze Drem Vil Finali kum tru!!!”
#59 et al.
You’re probably right that the size would be a little skimpy but one factor you’re not taking into account is that you shouldn’t consider individual people but families. Even if you disregard children then that at least doubles your plot to 42 square feet. Wow.
Maybe we should consider Alaska instead…
#65 – gooddebate,
Nobody has come up with the obvious answer, put everyone in the world on universal healthcare.
Coupled with good education for all, that probably would do it. Birthrates drop dramatically when people are educated and healthy.
#47–Scott==your factoid seems about as relevant as your earlier one that “if we keep reproducing at these rates in 5000 years we will equal the mass of the earth.” – – – Ok. True facts==totally irrelevant.
Please provide your link (HAH!!!) for the formula and its assumptions used to reach your numbers. I will be shocked==SHOCKED==if basic flaws are not immediately self evident.
Take today’s cost of doing xyz and apply it to the world need for xyz. Very expensive. Fails to take into account that when you scale up things get cheaper and alternatives are found.
Also, I know you have an overly pristine notion of what a “healthy biosphere” is. Please define that nebulous term and how it applies to defining the carrying capacity of the earth, and what the trade off might be to accommodate more people?
Now==I don’t think “more people” is the ultimate value here. That being true, for the very same reason, I can’t make a pristine earth the ultimate value either. Everything is give and take, compromise, competing values.
#60,
Yes building UP, for agro is possible..
You think 50k for 5 stories is enough?? i hope not.
Problem comes with Materials to build enough of them. Estimated that in the next 20 years we will start recycling ALL metals.
To the rest of you..
WE LIVE IN A FISH BOWL..Think about that.
What plants generate OXYGEN. What sources generate Oxygen.. What sources CLEAN air..
I really hope you like breathing CO2, and other chemicals.
Look at Land use. that 99% of all towns/cities are placed near waterways and aquifers. where in HELL on this planet could you find enough water for the BASIC use of a grouping this large. Daily USE would kill the amazon/Mississippi/st lawerance(the great lakes) rivers would END. Even with recycling.
Then dont forget about watering the CROPS. TRYING to get to the crops to harvest them and BACK to where they are needed.
http://one-simple-idea.com/Environment1.htm
“However, the Earth only has 57 million square miles of land (that’s 36.48 billion acres; there are 640 acres per square mile).
However, there are only 12 million square miles (7.68 billion acres) of arable land.”
“The U.S. has 3.794 million square miles, of which 3.54 million square miles is land area (for a fast growing U.S. population of 300 million people as of the end of year 2006).
That is only 8.09 acres per person in the U.S.
However, only about a quarter of that is arable land.
That means there are only about 2.02 acres per person of arable land in the U.S.”
#69–ECA==excellent link, I need/will spend more time there.
Can you distill your concern down to 1-2 sentences?
You are so all over the map, I can’t tell what you are trying to say. Do you think this how chicken little sounds?
ECA makes a couple of good points on the uptake but they too could be worked out.
One thing that we all need to first step back and realize is that no matter can be created or destroyed. With that blessing from science behind us, we can take comfort in knowing that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have biomass that outweighs the earth let alone humans exceeding that weight.
Beyond this, the water issue could be dealt with using desalination out of the GoM if we really did pick Texas. Which I also would not.
Also, another curious option that no one pointed out is the ability to go subterranean. Not to cause visions of Morlocks to crop up in anyone’s mind but it is a viable possibility and when you consider that the cost of excavation for the purposes of underground living could be partially offset by the fact that given enough mining/excavation, there will always be mineral resources that can be extracted from the removed rubble.
And on the food thing. ECA, if 5 stories feeds 50k, then think of how insanely small a footprint it would be if you can do 10 stories? I live in Canada in a municipal region that has about 120,000 people. If there were two of the 5 story buildings (Backup so that blight will not take out both) in the city (Fredericton), then the whole region would be fed at nearly no major costs and where well more than 70% of our power is hydro or nuke, it would also have major pollution benefit.
The ultimate trick is to build out infrastructure in a way that reduces/eliminates all of the current/contemporary ways of running our society. Things like why do I see produce from the southern hemisphere sold in my grocery store?
Other things like rainwater capture in ocean shore areas that have large rainfalls would help greatly offset the need to tap directly into rivers or lakes or at least reduce the need to do so.
Really, really, there are answers to all of this. The only REAL issue is access to the funds and/or the ability to keep the bureaucrats from f-ing the whole thing up :S
Jason..
Problem..
Under capitalism..WHO will pay for it??
Once built, many things work very well, and only cost alittle to maintain..
Under capitalism,
NO ONE will build it, unless they can make a PROFIT, at lesat 3 times the cost.
GOTTA BRING THIS BACK TO THE FRONT PAGE…
#68 – bobbo,
Of course, population will not continue at current rate. That’s sort of the point of the arithmetic exercise. To show that any increase in human population is unsustainable.
Clearly, since most of the planet is not made out of the stuff that makes humans, we cannot exceed the mass of the planet.
However, I doubt you can show that as more humans are produced, we get less massive. So, your cost of production example is irrelevant.
WE need this back on the front page..