The Earth is a Giant Clown Car

Science tells us that the land area on the earth is today 58 million square miles. Over 6.5 billion of us live there. If we have these numbers correct, on average a little over 100 humans live on a square mile of the earth's land.

Humans are almost everywhere. They are remarkably adaptable, living in a wide range of climates from freezing artic to tropics, from deserts to jungles, from lowlands to mountains, and from elegant to humble. This capability to make any place a home is contained in the verse from 150 years ago by John Howard Payne, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

Humans now have a challenge that is an outgrowth of their success at abundantly increasing in numbers. They must cope with being constrained to the finite size of the planet earth. Seeing how many people can fit on the earth is the planet equivalent of seeing how many people can fit into a phone booth or into a car. A clown car in the circus surprises us to see how many people can be contained. Nevertheless there are limits.

References:

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml

http://www.convertworld.com/en/area/

Humans are not the population problem!

Humans are not the population problem, it is the overwhelming NUMBERS of humans in the world that is the population problem.

Overpopulation and increasing population are difficult subjects that involve complicated issues. Issues of family values, social norms and cultural norms modulate individual attitudes. Additionally, attempting to comprehend a picture of human population within the whole world is only possible as an abstraction. Never mind that all these issues change with time, most human attitudes are in the context of here and now.

Humans have adapted remarkably to change in their environment and circumstance. At the same time, a fear lurks in the background that humans in general lack the mental capacity to come to grips with population issues. Too many abstractions are involved with comprehension. And also, humans tend to put on blinders with anything that may limit sexual activity and reproduction. This disposition has served well for the success of humans, but is a disadvantage when humans are at risk of overpopulating the earth.

Reducing the numbers of humans strikes home to each person in a personal way, and can be an inflammatory subject of discussion. It is easier to talk about less controversial subjects for 'saving the earth' such as increased recycling or reduced waste or a green environment.

Consider the problem of population size on a personal scale. If you are a family of four, you might possibly not be happy to increase your family to eight people living there in your home. Or if you have eight in your family, you might not be happy with sixteen showing up at home.

Doubling the number of people in your home is a major adjustment. In the same way doubling the number of people on earth is a major adjustment. As population continues to increase in the future, the adjustments could become impossible. If not impossible, then unbearable, or if not unbearable, then unpleasant.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/trojanguy/2527429724/

Population increase: Is it human progress or human failure?

Some are convinced that continuing increases in world population are a human failing that will have disastrous consequences for the future. They believe that major destruction of global life and society will occur. They foresee an apocalypse. You know those movie scenes set in a murky and almost deserted city. Or a barren desert wasteland with occasional life-support oases overrun by despotic criminals preying on the helpless.

At the other extreme, some don't believe there is a problem with overpopulation and don't believe it will lead on to a diminishing quality of life on earth. In a report from the Cato Institute(*) a few years ago, the lead comment was that there 'is no population problem. Population growth is the result of the plunging death rate and increasing life expectancy worldwide. That is progress.' Perhaps the writer was trying to be polemic. Whatever the case, nonbelievers say the problem of population increases will self-correct.

These are two quite different scenarios for the decades ahead -- progress to self-correction or sinking into disaster. Which scenario do you think will take over for life on earth? Notice that even now isolated pockets can be found around the earth for each scenario; that is, areas of population self-correction and also of apocalyptic disaster.

Even if self-correction eventually is the outcome, there are many paths to this outcome? The correction may result through disaster rather than through progress. For example the population might reduce as part of apocalyptic events.

Population correction can be reached by good means and by bad means. A likely bad way is to ignore the population problem and seek no adjustments in human behavior. To use an analogy, do we ignore hungry people because either they will find food or they will go away? Do we say that there is no need to worry about a hurricane, because eventually it will pass?

We should all try to be on a good path to population correction. We should all try to be part of a good solution and not just part of the problem. Our job is to find a good path.

(*)Reference: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5457 (May 9, 1999)

The Problem with Success in Reducing the Human Carbon Footprint

Suppose that 6.5 billion people on the planet did as they were asked and reduced their carbon production. The claim is that human CO2 production is contributing to disastrous global warming.

Let's suppose that each individual person's contribution to the earth's CO2 is cut in half on average. That is excellent! It sounds almost impossible, but suppose anyway.

And now suppose that the number of people living on earth doubles to 13 billion. -- Half the carbon footprint on average per person, but twice as many people. Unfortunately, we are then right back where we started with the same amount of carbon loading to the earth by humans.

According to the United Nations, we could actually be at double the present population in eighty years, although leveling off at 7 or 9 billion are seen as possible alternative scenarios. Success will require that the population numbers come in on the lower side. We can hope!

Reference: http://www.carbonrationing.org.uk/file/images/act-on-co2-logo

Did Martin Luther King say this about overpopulation?

Here is a quote from Martin Luther King that might come as a surprise.

Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim. (-Martin Luther King, Jr.,1929-1968)

Unsourced References:
Overpopulation - Wikiquote; Population Paraphenalia - World Population Awareness

Martin Luther King electrified people with his 'I have a Dream' speech, but the essence of what he said about overpopulation is perhaps less well known.

World population is over 6.5 billion and still growing.

Source: U.S. and World Population Clocks - POPClocks

News Update: Our earth is really a giant fishbowl

In the long gone past, everyone who bothered to think about the shape of the earth would tell you it was flat. They would say that it you went far enough, you could fall off the edge. Anyone who spoke otherwise at the time was kooky, or worse, was a heretic.

Then some people, who thought they were smart, made the claim that the earth was a round globe. They argued their point until most people believed it, and they pointed to the images of the earth seen from space. The flat earth types thought the images were fake but were then labeled the kooky ones.

Now we are being told that the global earth view is wrong. Some people, who think they are smart, tell us that the earth is really a giant round fishbowl. In their view, the fish are being crowded out and humans are being crowded in so much as to threaten all life in the fishbowl. Who would have believed it!

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2222548359/sizes/s/

OSTP and A Sustainable World

The following message was entered at www.change.gov.

Office of Science & Technology Policy: Population increase is testimony to human success but I also would point to the very serious risks of rapid growth in world population. The current growth rate is a harbinger of future failure in responding to global and U.S. ills such as environmental deterioration, poverty, and hunger. My wish for change would be that the OSTP or associated groups encourage leadership and provide focus for the fundamental issue of a sustainable world population. For lack of attention, we increase the likelihood of a sudden global livability meltdown, that would rival or exceed the consequences of the current global financial meltdown.