- Malcolm Russell
- Johannesburg
- South Africa
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How many people can Planet Earth support?
Poverty comes from an unfair sharing of resources. Bono's naive idea to eliminate poverty to the benefit of mankind flies in the face of the fact that we live on a finite planet. Historically the world has been able to support around 1.5 to 2 billion people, The age of oil changed that 150 years ago and we now have nearly 4 times that. The resources to support 7-9 billion people will have to continue to impact on nature to the detriment and eventual extinction of both.
James Davies
Dan F 50+
Why would we want to find out? We are experiencing first hand monumental population growth rates that will take us there. In fact, it is clear we are experiencing this problem now. It does seem to me that those of reasonable judgement should be concerned.
As we approach that population limit perhaps included in the weather report will be a "miserably index" as we discover what we already know. There are factors (such as drinkable water) that will come more and more into play as the sheer numbers of our fellow human beings makes it more and more difficult not just to be happy, and not just achieve our wants, but meet our basic human needs for survival.
David Attenborough's production, "How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth (FULL)," and thoughts on this topic reflect an intelligent perspective. He is one of several individuals that rank at the top of my admiration list as a naturalist. He would be an excellent person to provide a TED TALK on this subject.
Malcolm Russell
Avi Dey
zhengfei yan
Terry Haynes
Toine Stolk
Terry Haynes
Nathan Cook
Random Chance 30+
then those who post to this question may find themselves entertaining and thinking along the lines of:
"Well, who should "we" eliminate?"
Certainly not I. I'm white, or male, or still young, educated, have money, am physically healthy at present,
think more critically than the rest of the world, or even, I'm from Amerika.
It is certainly, in my mind, dangerous and foolish to allow oneself to be tricked into thinking this way.
If one does, and one really believes population is our number one problem, then please kill yourself.
How dare anyone of you -this collective you - entertain killing others.
The resources of the earth are finite. Many of them. Perhaps most of them but we don't know what the earth can decide to produce without our knowledge and without our continuing to fuck with her.
The problem is not overpopulation. It is the pollution of populations and the population of pollution that is near the top of the list.
Also, the mismanagement of resources for profit contribute heavily to scarcity, which is used to produce fear, loathing, a sense of impending doom, and the moral high road of thinking, "yes, someone has to make the tough decisions."
But the tough decision is to stop what we are doing and manage properly.
Economy isn't about money, unless one has been brainwashed into believing that.
Economy means saving, not wasting, being prudent and frugal and managing properly.
Do people still want to be corralled, intimidated, bullied and terrorized into next looking at their neighbor and thinking, "They are taking from me, they have to go!" whether that neighbor is across the street, next door or across an ocean or another continent?
People have to take a chance on what they believe in but most don't really trust what it is they say they believe in when push (from the war, terror mongering elite) comes to shove.
Together, living is possible for all, but with less prudence with love than we have shown.
Khayam Arif
Environmental scientists usaually describe this in terms of number of planet earth need to support human activities. currently we need 1.21 (might be greater) earths to support present consumption of resources.
(Source: Renewable Energy Sources and Method by Anne Maczulak)
Renessa Bak
we have yet to build floating cityes on the oceans. . , humanity as always been inventive enough to meet the challenge. . . . a wee better distrubution and sharing. . all you hold back on, eventually, bits ya in the but.
some have got to the payforward stage. I figure life's jsut mine to pass on, pass it on, pass it on, share the wealth and U'll find yourself richer with every passing day..
I suspect, we are seeing an influx of souls upon the face of earth for celebration its big turn around, a grand IMPlosion, with youth taking over and our ALL, living in respect of youth, with no ifs, buts or excuses, for reasons don't matter and excuses don't count.. It only a matter of time. Presently timing is just PURRfect, for setting the wheels in motion, for having this year become the year of celebration. The year Obama starts listening to the kids instead of all those entrenched in laws celebrating the meaning of life. Man has prove he cannot be trusted with a gun in his hand, I would not wish count on a woman, nor on one who's all business. just a mum, like the yellow mums from tigertown . . home lies in your schooling. .me? I Trump the Gump with my Slumdog enducation. know, that as soon as humanity begins to take the birthrights of a baby into consideration, know our food needs be grown around our homes ,cause its the breath of air,, it a 24 for 7, instead of 3 meals a day, from far away and as such, totally foreign to oru own molecular structures. since each reflects eathrock bed from neath where it grew. , more work for our bodyes. life's about working at opetimum capacity on minimum effort for maximum benefit, all round. time we operate as nature does. continually clear way for youth. living conscientiously.
Bernie Amell
Thomas Morris
Karmel Blue
7 billion is too many already and is the Elephant in the Room. Some poorer countries have 50 million millionaires and 170,000 million middle class (in Population of 1.5 Billion), yet pay NO tax, so do not help their poor. I'd like to see United Nations insist on tax to help their poor.
Too many kids born into poverty - how can you expect anything else if one family has 7 children or more. Then these kids .....just to eat are sold into slavery, prostitution, child soldiers etc. etc. It's wrong.
I know contraception is still a dirty word for some but a great solution. Medicines sans Frontiere I think it is (correct me if wrong)can give microchip type contraception lasts 2 years and when taken out pregnant immediately.
W. Ying 10+
.
Our life goal is to keep our DNA alive;
not to make big population.
.
(See also the 1st article, points 1-3, 10, 14, at
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=D24D89AE8B1E2E0D&id=D24D89AE8B1E2E0D%21283&sc=documents).
Krisztián Pintér 200+
ZX Style 10+
Never thought of it that way.
So if oil was infinite and cheap we could easily double the people Earth can support right?
Cause we can make arid area's fertile and grow crops on it.
Coming back to reality, there are a lot of intensifying techniques to improve the production of our crops.
In less developed countries those innovations could lead to doubling the harvest of crops.
Also we have a lot of rainforest capable to produce crops. Cutting it down and making it suitable for the production of food is possible.This is not very desireable.
All of this combined i believe we could easily support 10 billion people.
Question does the world population accept this growth of population?
Malcolm Russell
Then ask yourself where the water will come from.
Bernie Amell
I appreciate your asking this question and have seen the Attenborough documentary. I suggest that there is some flexibility in the carrying capacity due to the advantage conferred by human intelligence...particularly design when it is informed by ecological knowledge. This is relevant in that some of the pre-industrial natural Process limits can be stretched...but that is not saying that they can be denied or ignored. Please see my general post yesterday regarding soil and permaculture. Water processes are more open to technological mitigation than are depleted soils. So the flexibility that I am guessing at is a hopeful 3 times natural limits on human population, and then only if we can broadly adopt agroecology approaches to production, which will be a big challenge.
Charles Curt
Barry Palmer 50+
"Bono's naive idea to eliminate poverty to the benefit of mankind flies in the face of the fact that we live on a finite planet."
Bono is not naive. Bono has been working to eliminate poverty for years, and he is well aware of ALL of the factors influencing poverty and poor people.
"The resources to support 7-9 billion people will have to continue to impact on nature to the detriment and eventual extinction of both."
The possibility that humans will cause the extinction of the natural environment is so remote as to be unworthy of serious consideration.
There is the distinct possibility that the human species will damage the natural environment to such an extent that it will negatively affect the growth of the human population, possibly causing a reduction in the population or even our extinction. That is a possibility, but it is not inevitable. We can make choices that will reduce damage to the natural environment. IMO, the more important question is whether we actually will make the correct choices. There is another conversation that comes closer to addressing that question: "Is capitalism sustainable?"
Nothing was said in either of the videos that attempts to answer your original question, "How many people can Planet Earth support?" My original reply to that question still stands.
The eradication of poverty is not naive. The work has been effective and there is every reason to believe that the goal of zero poverty is feasible, even as the challenges become greater. As Bono said, the key is believing that it is possible. Today the primary causes of poverty have nothing to do with limited resources. The primary causes are politics and corruption. It is poverty that limits the resources available to the poor,
Malcolm Russell
You comment "The possibility that humans will cause the extinction of the natural environment is so remote as to be unworthy of serious consideration." And then in your next paragraph you go on to consider and actually agree! You go on to add that "We can make choices that will reduce damage to the natural environment and ask the question, will we?" I ask the question "Why haven't we yet?"
What is very clear is that we humans see ourselves as separate from the 'natural world' and have forgotten that we are part of it. You say it is poverty that limits the resources available to the poor. The point is that we live on a finite world of finite resources. I agree they have been shared 'unfairly'. The solution proposed unwittingly in Bono's model is just as obscene, because its not just a simple 'take from the rich and give to the poor" . We take habitats and environments from the natural environment you referred to earlier and reshape or destroy them to suit our short-term wants. Grasslands, forrests, oceans ... all being plundered to support an insane injunction to "go forth and multiply". We are the most efficient predators the world has ever seen and we behave as though the world is 'ours' and we aren't really a part of it. Check out the famous foxes and rabbits simulation - there are any number you can Google and try.
Finally, let me agree - zero poverty IS feasible. 10 billion people is not.
Brian Ruckman
Malcolm Russell
It is on YouTube and you will need simply to search for "how many people can live on planet earth". It is a BBC Horizon program. Or you can use this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN06tLRE4WE
It is a deeply researched and persuasive case.
I take this position because I am not here to argue for it - I want simply to ask that you see it for yourself before you make up your own mind. Or, as proposed in my original post, ask David Attenborough to speak at TED.
Malcolm Russell
Barry Palmer 50+
The only good answer to this question is, no one knows. Further, in all probability, no one will ever know. At one time it required a huge area of land to support a small tribe. If you do the math using those figures, we have already exceeded the planets calculated capacity. We have done so by using technology to harness resources that were previously unavailable. No one can possibly predict how efficiently we will be using the planet's resources in the future. There is certainly some limit, but with our technology advancing at an increasing pace, we have no way of predicting what that limit might be. If someone invents an extremely cheap method for capturing and delivering sustainable electric power, a great many problems will be solved very quickly. For example, cheap power could make hydroponic and other methods of growing food very competitive, requiring much less land.
Using this concept, that the Earth has limited resources, and there is a limit to human population, is a very weak argument to advocate conservation. There are many good reasons to promote conservation.
Lawren Jones 10+
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html
Malcolm Russell
Bruno Neves 10+
A man that owns nothing in a forest is a tribesman. Indian. Possibly very highly looked upon.
Our society has constructed the walls of our reality to be one where only farmers grow their food, and that the only wealth is that of possession of an arbitrary currency from which luxurious leisure can be purchased. The more you break down our system, the less it makes sense.. if we must use the same currency to purchase land, entertainment and food, why not buy land, grow food, and build entertainment? Can a man who owns an iPhone be considered happier or better off than a man who willingly has no phone and lives in his private country home?
I believe we are victims of our expectations, for if the poor man from the streets were to walk to a forest with an axe and a bow, set to build his life in the wild, he would no longer be poor. In summary, I am in fact "surprised" that poverty still exists.
Brian Ruckman
Because there isn't enough forest to sustain that many poor.
Random Chance 30+
That's not the right way to think about it.
Poverty, as just one human ill, should have been eliminated a long time ago.
We knew decades ago that it was possible. We haven't done it.
It is because of the mismanagement of the earth's resources and that management must be taken away from those in control of them.
Ownership doesn't apply. One cannot own any part of the earth. That is a lie that needs to be illuminated and eliminated.
There are tremendous amounts of resources in Greenland, the Antarctic, the Russian Federation, South America, Africa, and perhaps the Arctic. It's management that is crucial and you are right calling it an unfair sharing of resources.
We must get rid of the reasons and causes for corruption: Money, for starters, politicians, bankers, countries, nationalism, police, laws and so on.
I will have to watch his video. If he talks about the cost to eliminate poverty, how it will be paid for and so on, then I would agree with you that he is naive and anyone else who thinks monetarily.
Things don't......."get done".......... because of money.
Things.........."don't get done"........because of money.
Gail . 50+