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Thu 17 Nov, 2016 09:08 am
Dunno who best to address this question to.... but....
for the last 5K years man has been spilling man's blood on a grand scale. The 20 most deadliest wars (all of them fairly recent) have a total of almost 1Billion dead. And then we have illnesses like the bubonic plague (200M dead) the kala azar, typhoid, polio, meningitis, maleria, cancer etc.... And then of course starvation. So if we all loved each other and science managed to prevail over illnesses and we only died of old age and catastrophies like tsunamies then I suspect our population right now would be about 20B. The planet simply cannot sustain it.
Am I the only person in the universe to shout hooray for the muslims who killed 270M jews and christians, hooray for cancer, hooray for the black death, hooray for 80M dead in WWII etc, etc, etc???
@Morlaf,
Hooray from me too. But not from the 'not enough room' angle. The earth could easily support 20B people if we had a more sane management style.
Hooray for death because living here for longer than the average lifespan would bore me beyond what I could tolerate. But that too would be different if society had a saner approach to life in general.
@Leadfoot,
"easily support 20Billion" ??? I must confess, your optimism might find more fertile ground if you could somehow support that..........
The US could feed the world if needed.
I see the day when millions of people will live off-planet, in space stations. The earth will provide food needs and supply water to those who live off-planet.
Who knows what class of people will either be privileged to live on earth or will be delegated to live there.
Probably the workers of the land will live on earth. God knows what shape it will be in by that time.
@Morlaf,
I don't know where you live, but in most parts of the USA, good soil is going unused. Look at the sprawling lawns in the suburbs of every major city. Look at the golf courses. Look at the median strips along the interstates. If need arose, all this land could produce food. I have a small vegetable garden that produces an astounding amount of food with minimal effort. If I was so inclined I could quadruple the size of it and produce a majority of my own food. But food is cheap and shopping is easier then hoeing.
@Morlaf,
You're a sick puppy.
Have you ever watched anyone you love die of cancer?
Would it make you happy to do so?
@Morlaf,
Quote:"easily support 20Billion" ??? I must confess, your optimism might find more fertile ground if you could somehow support that..........
I'm a recreational pilot (fly only for fun) and when you fly at low altitude over Florida (a relatively densely populated state) you can see that people, crops and pasture take up only a small percentage of land use. You could easily triple the number of people even in this 'crowded' state if managed properly.
This info is from the USDA.
Quote:Overview of Land Use in the United States-The U.S. has 2.3 billion acres of land. However, 375 million acres are in Alaska and not suitable for agricultural production. The land area of the lower 48 states is approximately 1.9 billion acres.
To put things in perspective, keep in mind that California is 103 million acres, Montana 94 million acres, Oregon 60 million acres and Maine 20 million acres.
Developed Land- Despite all the hand wringing over sprawl and urbanization, only 66 million acres are considered developed lands. This amounts to 3 percent of the land area in the U.S., yet this small land base is home to 75 percent of the population. In general, urban lands are nearly useless for biodiversity preservation. Furthermore, urbanized lands, once converted, usually do not shift to another use.
Rural Residential Land-This category comprises nearly all sprawl and subdivisions along with farmhouses scattered across the country The total acreage for rural residential is 73 million acres. Of this total, 44 million acres are lots of 10 or more acres.
Developed and rural residential make up 139 million acres, or 6.1 percent of total land area in the U.S. This amount of land is not insignificant until you consider that we planted more than 80 million acres of feeder corn and another 75 million acres of soybeans (95 percent of which are consumed by livestock, not tofu eaters) last year alone. These two crops affect more of the land area of the U.S. than all the urbanization, rural residential, highways, railroads, commercial centers, malls, industrial parks and golf courses combined.
Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are primarily used to feed livestock.
The amount of land used to produce all vegetables in the U.S. is less than 3 million acres.
Range and Pasture Land- Some 788 million acres, or 41.4 percent of the U. S. excluding Alaska, are grazed by livestock. This is an area the size of 8.3 states the size of Montana. Grazed lands include rangeland, pasture and cropland pasture. More than 309 million acres of federal, state and other public lands are grazed by domestic livestock. Another 140 million acres are forested lands that are grazed.
Forest Land- Forest lands comprise 747 million acres. Of these lands, some 501 million acres are primarily forest (minus lands used for grazed forest and other special categories).
@Leadfoot,
Thanks for that, Leadfoot. I find data much more interesting, compelling and convincing than ppl calling me sick if I did not feel sadness if a child dies of cancer. They clearly did understand what I was trying to get to and the help I need to understand certain things. There is no doubt that we have definitely not maximised the productivity of this planet, Leadfoot (speaking primarily to you but any1 bothered to read) but food is not the only problem of having 20B ppl. how about 60B or 100B? eventually you will come to a point where you have tow wonder what do we do? X-number of ppl = X-number of consumers. Consumers do 2 things: a) Consume (food and oxygen)and b) Defecate. Eventually the problem arises. And I cannot help but see mass killers like war mongering nutters (religious and non~), cancer (and other insane, incurable illnesses) as a.... frankly...... mercy!
@Morlaf,
Quote:And I cannot help but see mass killers like war mongering nutters (religious and non~), cancer (and other insane, incurable illnesses) as a.... frankly...... mercy!
I tend to see it as .... 'design'.
Yes, at some point population will be unsustainable. If I am right about 'design', that eventuality will have been taken into account.
Or, If and when overpopulation becomes a planet wide problem, people's attitude will change, they will accept whatever steps are needed to stabilize population at a sustainable level. It could be an ugly process but probably no uglier than current conditions, just a different kind of ugly.
@Morlaf,
Death is an integral part of the entire process. You're celebrating just that one aspect of it. Why concentrate on just that instead of the process as a whole?
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