Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
There isn't really a fixed limit. It depends on how people live and what kind of technology they have access to. There were countries in the past with much smaller populations that suffered from famine and environmental problems because they had inferior technology and social problems. It's possible to imagine better energy sources becoming available in the future that would allow a larger number of people to live on the planet but have a smaller environmental footprint.
|
With all due respect, I feel there actually is a fixed limit with the ambiguity being at which point that fixed limit is reached. Obviously, one can imagine that there would be an ultimate point where every square inch of land is physically taken up by humans - a situation that most of us would agree to be inhabitable. And I think we would all likely agree that the limit at which people could actually sustain health and happiness would be much less than that. So therefore, we have established that there is a limit.
Where that limit lies is partly subjective, partly objective. I'm sure we could objectively determine through scientific analysis the max population at which it's possible for people to physically live. Also, as mentioned, technological advances could have an effect on what that final number is and could potentially increase that max in the future as new technology becomes available.
However, the subjective side would have many different answers, largely dependent on how people define how they want to live and what they decide are their priorities for the environment, etc., which is much broader than a simple carbon footprint calculation. Yes, energy sustainability and the effect of pollutants on our environment are very important, but there are many other factors to consider:
- What about our practices which effect other species of life on the planet? Is it acceptable to allow other creatures to die off directly due to human population? Then one has to consider what effect does that have on the rest of the environment/ecosystem? There is a balance that we've already surpassed where the existence of so many humans on the planet is happening at the expense of pretty much all other species to differing degrees - this is fact.
- What type of food supply do we want? Natural organically grown food, or manufactured food? Genetically engineered? There is a wide range of opinions on what is acceptable in this field. Often the difference comes between people who care about their well-being and companies which stand to profit from particular activities.
- How do we want to live? Does everybody want to live in a situation like Manila, for example, with a population density of 111,002 per square mile? (from wikipedia) I suspect that there is no one answer for that, but people who have experienced a richer style of living (which can have many interpretations, but I'm not referring to monetary richness) would probably not aspire to live in such density.
- etc., etc.....
Of course technology can have an effect on some of these things, but historically when humans apply technology to have a certain desired effect there are often several undesired effects that go along with it. I thinks it's very dangerous to assume that technology will always have an ideal solution for everything. Also, one must remember that technology is often initially created for the betterment of mankind, but then to attain sustainability somebody has to be able to profit from it, after which profit becomes its reason for being rather than its social benefits - that is an entire subject in itself.
Finally, the question that continues to haunt me is... why? Why do we continue to grow the earth's human population exponentially? There are many cultural and religious causes for it, including humans' hard-wired desire to reproduce at all costs. This all was arguably sustainable when the planet was more sparsely populated, but now, IMHO, it has become a liability rather than a benefit. Yet, politically and otherwise there appears to be a continual push to grow population - I think we as a species need to do some soul-searching and start asking hard questions regarding the wisdom of this mindset.... :twocents: