Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shane on May 29, 2012 at 11:41pm

I dunno how serious it is.  I think he may be trying to get us to do his homework for him.

Permalink Reply by Steve C on May 30, 2012 at 11:59am

It's only serious in that I ran into the debate on another forum, and they seemed to think the sky was falling.  Of course, it's heavily populated with agnostic/atheist utilitarians.  (Not by design, though.)

I haven't had homework in the traditional meaning in probably ten years.

I just want to hear what people with a different overall mindset would think.

Permalink Reply by Chuck Knight on May 29, 2012 at 11:38pm

Absolute fiction.  There are appx 7 billion people on the planet. 

 

North America is just over 6 billion acres in size.  That means that *every* man, woman, and child on the planet could have just shy of an acre of land (minimum for self sufficient food production), while being confined to only a single continent...and not have a problem, even, with population density.

 

Distributed across multiple continents, there is absolutely no problem with population density, or resource availability.

 

The supposed "problems" are artificial constructs.

Permalink Reply by The Original Cody on May 29, 2012 at 11:57pm

....but no one wants to live in a desert or in nunuvut....

Permalink Reply by Liam S. on May 30, 2012 at 12:15am

Tell that to the entire populations of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Albuquerque.

Permalink Reply by The Original Cody on May 30, 2012 at 12:30am

I already have.

Permalink Reply by Chuck Knight on May 30, 2012 at 12:48am

Obviously you don't have allergies.

Permalink Reply by Steve C on May 30, 2012 at 12:03pm

You're ignoring a few realities, however.  (Not to say that your conclusion is wrong.)

• There's a significant percentage of non-arable land. 
• You're ignoring the amount of land necessary to process CO2

Permalink Reply by Chuck Knight on May 30, 2012 at 12:13pm

Not at all.  We have 7 continents, 6 of which are easily habitable.  (Antarctica isn't)  One single continent would hold every single person on the planet.  Comfortably.

 

But you're right about the details of making it work...arable land, etc, so let's say that only half the land is arable/habitable.

 

By running the numbers to take into account non-arable land, etc, we could probably do it on 2 continents.  That's assuming appx 50% usage of each.

 

That still leaves us 5 continents, virgin and untouched, which could easily take care of CO2 processing, etc.  Look how lush the *natural* plant life is in South America, or research how lush it was in North America...it was once joked that a squirrel could run from coast to coast, never touching the ground.  Remember, Seattle and much of the Pacific Northwest was built in what can be categorized as a rain forest.

 

And, it appears that you're forgetting that the earth is 75% water, and that water is filled with marine plant life.  Algae accounts for a significant majority of the global CO2 processing.

 

I still say "overpopulation" is primarily a myth, and most (if not all) issues arising from such, are self-inflicted.

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