Can the planet support 11 billion people?
08-14-2015, 02:55 AM
Until the turn of the3 20th Century, the supportability of Earth was around 500 million humans. Understand the Technological Revolution (Industrial explosion) changed the rules a bit.
The invention of gasoline and a way to burn it to power machinery made it possible for mass farming with few individuals doing the work - thus the Great Migration of the species from rural family farms to the Cities.
The discoveries of all of the interesting chemicals that petroleum oil can produce, such as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, plant disease controls lead to crop lands producing over ten times more food per acre.
All of that coupled with pumps to drain ground water (such as what is happening in the grain belt, draining of Ice Age water deposits that are NOT being replaced by today's precipitation rates, dam building, irrigation canals created arable land where the land wasn't arable (usable for farmland).
The food aspect here is one of the main problems we face as the population continues to grow. The other problem is pollution of fresh water resources.
Back before the industrial revolution, most rivers, lakes and streams one could drink directly out of, but due to industry, deforestation, mining, and other human activities (road building being chief amongst these) clean, non-toxic water is becoming scarce.
While its true that many methods have come up to turn 'iffy' water resources into ultra clean
(as compared to water 200 years ago), humans have, through this activity reduced the ability to drink natural water which is typically not that pure to begin with. The more industrialized a nation is, the more prone to simple water borne illness the citizens become. So a US citizen traveling to Mexico drinks the water of Mexico (which isn't more polluted, its just less chemically sterilized) and gets sick.
We are finding that our water is being filled with filth, from runoff of pesticides, herbicides and even fertilizers which make it possible for an acre of land to sustain ten times the people it once did. So our ability to feed more people has lead to loss of water which is one of those substances that are vital to life.
The other aspect to the whole "Can Earth Hold More People?" question is basic resources.
Back in the 1800's petroleum deposits were near the surface, many areas the oil was literally oozing out of the ground. In the 1930's we discovered vast deposits of oil in the ground, the problem was getting at it as pumps and drill technology wasn't up to the task. Today we readily pump up oil that in the depression era was unattainable.
And it is not just oil. Most minerals and metals that were easy to reach with a pick and shovel and more primitive methods of mining are gone. We now rely heavily on our technological ability to dig deeper than ever before.
Should something happen to wipe out civilization as we know it today, leading to the loss of our current technologies, a second Industrial Revolution cannot happen - there are not the easy to reach mineral resources that allowed Industrial Revolution One.
Waste Management is currently being done very poorly, we still just bury most of our vital materials and resources once whatever we made it into breaks.
The current "economic" system of free capitalism is burning through materials at a rate that has lead to our entering the era of Peak Everything. Each phone that is designed to be replaced two years later is how we are doing everything.
200 years ago the average house was designed and build to last 200+ years. Today the typical house is built to "survive" 50 years - however most of the stuff inside of the houses are designed to fail within a decade in order to force home owners to replace stuff.
In Europe there are houses centuries old which will last for more centuries to come. Many of the historic buildings built prior to the 20th Century have roofs that have lasted for centuries with only minor patching.
Today's modern sky scrapers start leaking as soon as they are erected.
If humanity doesn't step back and look at how wasteful it is, if humanity doesn't immediately change agriculture to perma-culture, and stop fishing the oceans instead of farming the oceans - our ability to feed the already existing population will fail in less than 50 years. Adding more hungry mouths to a world with millions starving to death is pure insanity.
There is only one option for humans to thrive and continue having its numbers increase is to get off this planet.
The moon's surface contains enough raw material to sustain 10 billion humans for 500 years. The asteroid belt contains enough materials to sustain 10 billion humans for nearly a thousand years. The rings of Saturn contains enough water to fill the earth's oceans nearly 20 times. And that water is cleaner and purer than virgin stream water on earth.
So the answer is a yes and no one.
IF humanity continues to rely soley on earth for its resources, no it cannot sustain ten billion people for any lenfgth of time worth talking about.
However, IF humanity starts getting into space - really into space, not just sending up probes and tiny machines, but serious base building and mining of moon and the asteroids - then humanity can up its numbers to easily 100 billion.
Mercury is the richest planet in the solar system when it comes to heavy metals. If humans decided to start mining Mercury in any serious manner, it can sustain 100 billion humans for well over two thousand years with everyone having every device and toy that we in the First World currently have.
But don't hold your breath. I fear that the world's governments are not designed to consider the long term, besides as history has taught, colonies of humans tend to rapidly grow weary of shipping resources back to their homeland and declare Independence and demand freedom from their "parent" nation.
Politicians only work toward short term goals to insure they win their next election - none can commit to the long term decades of investment(s) to reach out and truly become a space based species.
Oh sure, there are still a few very minor things to iron out when it comes to the technology to exploit space. But we tend to forget that everything we have today started off with minor problems which were ironed out.
The species is, I fear, doomed - as is a huge chunk of the rest of the species on the planet. Human intelligence is not an evolutionary advantage anymore, now it is a disadvantage - and species that are evolutionary disadvantaged become what we call "extinct".
The invention of gasoline and a way to burn it to power machinery made it possible for mass farming with few individuals doing the work - thus the Great Migration of the species from rural family farms to the Cities.
The discoveries of all of the interesting chemicals that petroleum oil can produce, such as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, plant disease controls lead to crop lands producing over ten times more food per acre.
All of that coupled with pumps to drain ground water (such as what is happening in the grain belt, draining of Ice Age water deposits that are NOT being replaced by today's precipitation rates, dam building, irrigation canals created arable land where the land wasn't arable (usable for farmland).
The food aspect here is one of the main problems we face as the population continues to grow. The other problem is pollution of fresh water resources.
Back before the industrial revolution, most rivers, lakes and streams one could drink directly out of, but due to industry, deforestation, mining, and other human activities (road building being chief amongst these) clean, non-toxic water is becoming scarce.
While its true that many methods have come up to turn 'iffy' water resources into ultra clean
(as compared to water 200 years ago), humans have, through this activity reduced the ability to drink natural water which is typically not that pure to begin with. The more industrialized a nation is, the more prone to simple water borne illness the citizens become. So a US citizen traveling to Mexico drinks the water of Mexico (which isn't more polluted, its just less chemically sterilized) and gets sick.
We are finding that our water is being filled with filth, from runoff of pesticides, herbicides and even fertilizers which make it possible for an acre of land to sustain ten times the people it once did. So our ability to feed more people has lead to loss of water which is one of those substances that are vital to life.
The other aspect to the whole "Can Earth Hold More People?" question is basic resources.
Back in the 1800's petroleum deposits were near the surface, many areas the oil was literally oozing out of the ground. In the 1930's we discovered vast deposits of oil in the ground, the problem was getting at it as pumps and drill technology wasn't up to the task. Today we readily pump up oil that in the depression era was unattainable.
And it is not just oil. Most minerals and metals that were easy to reach with a pick and shovel and more primitive methods of mining are gone. We now rely heavily on our technological ability to dig deeper than ever before.
Should something happen to wipe out civilization as we know it today, leading to the loss of our current technologies, a second Industrial Revolution cannot happen - there are not the easy to reach mineral resources that allowed Industrial Revolution One.
Waste Management is currently being done very poorly, we still just bury most of our vital materials and resources once whatever we made it into breaks.
The current "economic" system of free capitalism is burning through materials at a rate that has lead to our entering the era of Peak Everything. Each phone that is designed to be replaced two years later is how we are doing everything.
200 years ago the average house was designed and build to last 200+ years. Today the typical house is built to "survive" 50 years - however most of the stuff inside of the houses are designed to fail within a decade in order to force home owners to replace stuff.
In Europe there are houses centuries old which will last for more centuries to come. Many of the historic buildings built prior to the 20th Century have roofs that have lasted for centuries with only minor patching.
Today's modern sky scrapers start leaking as soon as they are erected.
If humanity doesn't step back and look at how wasteful it is, if humanity doesn't immediately change agriculture to perma-culture, and stop fishing the oceans instead of farming the oceans - our ability to feed the already existing population will fail in less than 50 years. Adding more hungry mouths to a world with millions starving to death is pure insanity.
There is only one option for humans to thrive and continue having its numbers increase is to get off this planet.
The moon's surface contains enough raw material to sustain 10 billion humans for 500 years. The asteroid belt contains enough materials to sustain 10 billion humans for nearly a thousand years. The rings of Saturn contains enough water to fill the earth's oceans nearly 20 times. And that water is cleaner and purer than virgin stream water on earth.
So the answer is a yes and no one.
IF humanity continues to rely soley on earth for its resources, no it cannot sustain ten billion people for any lenfgth of time worth talking about.
However, IF humanity starts getting into space - really into space, not just sending up probes and tiny machines, but serious base building and mining of moon and the asteroids - then humanity can up its numbers to easily 100 billion.
Mercury is the richest planet in the solar system when it comes to heavy metals. If humans decided to start mining Mercury in any serious manner, it can sustain 100 billion humans for well over two thousand years with everyone having every device and toy that we in the First World currently have.
But don't hold your breath. I fear that the world's governments are not designed to consider the long term, besides as history has taught, colonies of humans tend to rapidly grow weary of shipping resources back to their homeland and declare Independence and demand freedom from their "parent" nation.
Politicians only work toward short term goals to insure they win their next election - none can commit to the long term decades of investment(s) to reach out and truly become a space based species.
Oh sure, there are still a few very minor things to iron out when it comes to the technology to exploit space. But we tend to forget that everything we have today started off with minor problems which were ironed out.
The species is, I fear, doomed - as is a huge chunk of the rest of the species on the planet. Human intelligence is not an evolutionary advantage anymore, now it is a disadvantage - and species that are evolutionary disadvantaged become what we call "extinct".
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