What size of human population can earth sustain?

[Pythagorean]

Me and five friends and twenty womens could live comfortable on the whole Earth. Anything more than that is elbows and assholes.

 

[LennoxLewis]

I'm sure they didn't. But we've advanced technologically to the point where I think everyone could have my standard of living, if there were just far fewer of us. You don't see boatloads of people from the US trying to escape to Haiti do you? And are Germans and Brits flooding into Pakistan?

People have always migrated to less crowded, more hospitable lands. Unfortunately, I think we're seeing the end of that.

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

 

[tchitt]

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

Agreed. There's no reason all seven billion of us couldn't have a substantial meal every day... It's just that the powers that be have other things in mind.

 

[OmCheeto]

I think we could provide the entire world of a decent standard of living, but irreversible corruption stands too large in the way. I do agree that the living standard in Africa and Asia wouldn't exactly suffer if 70% of their population suddenly vanished, but still...

Agreed. There's no reason all seven billion of us couldn't have a substantial meal every day... It's just that the powers that be have other things in mind.

Well, not having lived in every community on the planet, I can neither agree, nor disagree, with your opinions.

True, we could provide the whole world with a better standard of living, but for how long? Resources are already running out. And distribution of food from surplus nations to deficit nations is going to be problematic with the worlds shrinking energy supply. Nations really need to take on the Indian model of local, population sustaining farms within the next 100 years. If their farms can't sustain their populations, then they'd better have something to sell, or put birth control rules into effect.

And "powers to be" just sounds like an easy answer to a complex question. Google "Failed States" and "Civil Wars", and try to determine what they have in common. Why is Somalia at the top of the Failed Nation list? How did it get there? Who caused it? Did any individual cause it? Did inside or outside forces cause it? What were the triggers?

I don't have the answers to any of these questions. But until we can determine the solution to the current problems, I'd say the original question should be rephrased as; "What size of human population can the human population sustain?"

But I believe we've already gone off topic enough to the point where that actually is what we are arguing.

 

[binzing]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people. Needless to say he refused to give me any links when I asked.

 

[Negatron]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people.

Not bad, but a far cry from my Trillion Quadrillion. I would like to have the honor of being the next moron you speak of on discussion forums.

 

[OmCheeto]

I once had a moron on our local newspaper's discussion forum try and tell me the Earth could support 50 BILLION people. Needless to say he refused to give me any links when I asked.

Hey! I said 50 billion also...

Technically, I do think it's possible.

But remember the goop they were eating in the movie "The Matrix"? I think we'd have to get used to eating something very similar. Probably a mixture of pee, minced dead people, and dirt. And maybe some lichens for dessert.

And we wouldn't need all of these space consuming homes anymore. We could just huddle like penguins when it gets cold.

 

[Tibarn]

Supporting 50 billion people would be difficult, but might not be impossible. I think there's enough space to pull it off. Loads of people would have to live in the desert, on ships, or even underground in order to clear up enough arable land to support the amount of farming needed to feed everyone. It should be possible to produce enough food. Here's where genetically engineered corn would come in handy.

Water could be a problem though. For that, we'd need a cheap energy source that would enable us to efficiently desalinate seawater. Waste management would be another problem, but with proper planning I think it can be pulled off.

Our technology isn't up to speed yet to manage 50 billion people, but by the time the population grows that big it could still catch up. Note that this would require cutting down more forests and maybe a few mass extinctions to free up land. It won't be pretty and life won't be very fun.