What's the optimum human population of the Earth?

[Odin]

Originally posted by Ned
The question itself implies government power to effect the result. I wouldn't want to live in such a world.

i'd rather live in that world then be starving.

[Kuciwalker]

The two aren't mutually exclusive, Odin. The easiest way to drop the population would be bioweapons/forced starvation.

[Lancer]

The 'bioweapon' will likely be natural, as in a natural event, like ebola or the birdflu, the starvation will be from environment destruction. Either of these things wiping out most of humanity would be a direct result of over population. No horrific act of a madman that some here imagine for whatever reason.

I'm thinking of the world after these events,what population limit would the survivors who lived through the great death set for themselves.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lancer
The 'bioweapon' will likely be natural, as in a natural event, like ebola or the birdflu, the starvation will be from environment destruction. Either of these things wiping out most of humanity would be a direct result of over population. No horrific act of a madman that some here imagine for whatever reason.

I'm thinking of the world after these events,what population limit would the survivors who lived through the great death set for themselves.

severe destruction of the ecosystem would massively suck and almost certainly lead to the tragic and very permanent loss of *millions* of priceless species. However I'm not certain that this would necessarily lead to massive starvation of human populations unless it was *very* sudden.

In a pinch crops could be engineered that wouldn't require much beyond water, CO2, sunlight and very poor excuses for soil to grow and feed humanity.

It would indeed be a sad world to live in where the ecosystem is so collapsed that we have to bootstrap our agriculture as if we were living on mars but I'm not at all convinced that it would trigger mass starvation except possibly in countries too poor to afford the potentially hugely expensive (at first) new crops.

[Solly]

I find these kinds of discussion pointless.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
I find these kinds of discussion pointless.

you mean Apolyton OT kinds of discussions?

[Solly]

Originally posted by Geronimo


you mean Apolyton OT kinds of discussions?

The whole "how many people can Earth support" etc. No-one ever has a clue do they! It just ends up a wankathon about what different ecofictionalists people have read.

[Lancer]

You think we're talking about the maximum number when in fact it's the optimum.

Geronimo, what about the bird flu? All those other nasty little bugs from the apes? Marburg etc...

[Eli]

The maximum is the optimum, Lancer.

[Sandman]

In a pinch crops could be engineered that wouldn't require much beyond water, CO2, sunlight and very poor excuses for soil to grow and feed humanity.

Doubtful.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sandman


Doubtful.

really? do the laws of physics prevent this? Why is it doubtful? To be doubtful doesn't there have to be some substantial hurdle in our way? As an example of a possibly doubtful technology a space elevator might be doubtful because no materials strong enough to build it are currently known. What is doubtful about crops that simply do what bacteria have done for billions of years?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lancer
You think we're talking about the maximum number when in fact it's the optimum.

Geronimo, what about the bird flu? All those other nasty little bugs from the apes? Marburg etc...

Even when humanity was totally clueless about disease they very seldomn wiped out more than a fraction of the population of child bearing age. We may well be in for more spanish flu scaled pandemics but it would take multiple such global pandemics to say cut the global population in half.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Geronimo
really? do the laws of physics prevent this? Why is it doubtful? To be doubtful doesn't there have to be some substantial hurdle in our way? As an example of a possibly doubtful technology a space elevator might be doubtful because no materials strong enough to build it are currently known. What is doubtful about crops that simply do what bacteria have done for billions of years?

If the conditions are too harsh, the plant will need to devote too much of its energy to survival to make a worthwhile crop.

[chequita guevara]

Re: What's the optimum human population of the Earth?

Originally posted by Lancer
If humanity sets as its goals enough recources for everyone to have enough and to explore the final frontier, space, what would be the optimum population of the Earth?

So ecological concerns aren't an issue. The problem then becomes, what's enough? That standard has changed throughout history, and will change again. What might be enough in a communist society isn't the same as enough in a capitalist one.

Assuming technology to allow for massive increases in energy and to take care of the environment enough to avoid killing ourselves off, I'd put Eli's number as a very conservative one.

It would require a completely different way of living. We've have to be crowded into archologies and give up suburban sprawl. We'd need to make drinking water from sea water. We'd need massive pollution control.

We could easily fit half a trillion people on planet Earth. I doubt it would be any kind of life we'd want to live, but people are nothing if not adaptable.

[SpencerH]

Re: What's the optimum human population of the Earth?

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