Earth's Carrying Capacity
I had the great pleasure last summer of working with an international student from Mongolia on a project that involved a lot of fieldwork on streams and wetlands all over the coastal plain of South Carolina. Setsen is an intelligent twenty something woman who was eager to hear our version (mine and the professor I work for) of the American perspective on a variety of topics, and because we spent a lot of time in a car together there was plenty of opportunity for this. During one of these trips she asked the question "Do you think the Earth has reached its limit for humans?" This was a touchy question for me since a lot of what drove me from my beloved home state of California was related to overcrowding. I fought back the urge to snap "of course it has" and answered with a more measured, "I guess that depends on whether you mean optimum or maximum sustainable." Dan, the professor with us, brought up a report he had heard that said we have long surpassed the ability of the planet to maintain the population of everyone at the standard we have in America, although China and other heavily populated countries are rapidly striving for this. This led to a discussion of carrying capacity related factors like food and water supply. It occurred to me during the quiet portion of our drive that she may not have been familiar with the concept of carrying capacity, as she was a student of geology rather than ecology, like myself, and even if she was, attempting to define a "carrying capacity" for humans is something of a moving target, with constant claims that innovations and technology will allow for a much larger human population than originally considered possible. Also she was coming from a country which is the least densely populated in the world and so had a different perspective on the topic.
I considered our situation as we drove, with the car we were in as its own world. There were three of us, plus lots of gear and equipment for measuring and sampling, lots of water for field work in the heat and humidity, and our food supply for a long day. We could possibly squeeze one more person in the spare seat, if we moved our gear around and arranged very carefully, and people were willing to put a few things on their lap. It would be a bit uncomfortable, but definitely doable. So what about 2 more people, or three, or four. I realized that soon we would have people without seats, perhaps laying uncomfortably on top of gear and equipment. With additional people would come tough choices, which gear or equipment to get rid of, and eventually more critical supplies. If we had to we could pack the car tight like a clown car and cram many people in, but the mission would long have been abandoned, and doubtless there would be arguments, if not fights, over the best positions and the scarce supplies if the ride went on for any length of time. Throw in windows that won't roll down and a heater stuck in the on position and you have one unpleasant voyage. Enjoyment, let alone any meaningful accomplishment from such a journey would be impossible.
So I considered advances in technology that might change the equation for our actual planet. Science and technological innovation have developed factory farming of poultry, pigs, and cattle which allow for great densities of those animals for our use. Where there's a need and a will (and a profit) there's a way I guess. Could we carefully control the supply of all the world's fresh water, develop the most efficient supply of nutrients and a system for their delivery, design a flawless and efficient system for waste removal and recycling, pump us full of antibiotics and inoculate us against every organism and ailment as soon as it evolves? Would that allow us to hit, 20 billion, 30, 50 billion perhaps? Then I imagined trying to factory farm something like tigers or bears. Humans aren't those but we sure aren't poultry either. We are not a species prone to accept mere survival for one second longer than necessary. We are a deeply political species with a strong sense of tribalism, and surely we would destroy eachother long before we reached population densities that had us crunched one on top of the other.
Even the pope this month seemed to give a nod to Malthus in his statement about responsibility in family size, and that's really what it comes down to, responsibility. We have a responsibility to live within the sustainable means of this one planet we are blessed with, a responsibility not to use technology to accelerate the utilization of our natural resources but to make them stretch further, rich countries have a responsibility to developing countries in helping them to avoid the pitfalls of environmental degradation we made in our development, and each of us has a responsibility to consider and minimize the impact we have on land, air, and water in everything we do and use. If we hope to disprove Thomas Malthus, we must.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-human-activity-has-pushed-earth-beyond-four-of-nine-planetary-boundaries/2015/01/15/f52b61b6-9b5e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?hpid=z2
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-good-catholics-dont-have-mate-rabbits-n289336
I considered our situation as we drove, with the car we were in as its own world. There were three of us, plus lots of gear and equipment for measuring and sampling, lots of water for field work in the heat and humidity, and our food supply for a long day. We could possibly squeeze one more person in the spare seat, if we moved our gear around and arranged very carefully, and people were willing to put a few things on their lap. It would be a bit uncomfortable, but definitely doable. So what about 2 more people, or three, or four. I realized that soon we would have people without seats, perhaps laying uncomfortably on top of gear and equipment. With additional people would come tough choices, which gear or equipment to get rid of, and eventually more critical supplies. If we had to we could pack the car tight like a clown car and cram many people in, but the mission would long have been abandoned, and doubtless there would be arguments, if not fights, over the best positions and the scarce supplies if the ride went on for any length of time. Throw in windows that won't roll down and a heater stuck in the on position and you have one unpleasant voyage. Enjoyment, let alone any meaningful accomplishment from such a journey would be impossible.
So I considered advances in technology that might change the equation for our actual planet. Science and technological innovation have developed factory farming of poultry, pigs, and cattle which allow for great densities of those animals for our use. Where there's a need and a will (and a profit) there's a way I guess. Could we carefully control the supply of all the world's fresh water, develop the most efficient supply of nutrients and a system for their delivery, design a flawless and efficient system for waste removal and recycling, pump us full of antibiotics and inoculate us against every organism and ailment as soon as it evolves? Would that allow us to hit, 20 billion, 30, 50 billion perhaps? Then I imagined trying to factory farm something like tigers or bears. Humans aren't those but we sure aren't poultry either. We are not a species prone to accept mere survival for one second longer than necessary. We are a deeply political species with a strong sense of tribalism, and surely we would destroy eachother long before we reached population densities that had us crunched one on top of the other.
Even the pope this month seemed to give a nod to Malthus in his statement about responsibility in family size, and that's really what it comes down to, responsibility. We have a responsibility to live within the sustainable means of this one planet we are blessed with, a responsibility not to use technology to accelerate the utilization of our natural resources but to make them stretch further, rich countries have a responsibility to developing countries in helping them to avoid the pitfalls of environmental degradation we made in our development, and each of us has a responsibility to consider and minimize the impact we have on land, air, and water in everything we do and use. If we hope to disprove Thomas Malthus, we must.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-human-activity-has-pushed-earth-beyond-four-of-nine-planetary-boundaries/2015/01/15/f52b61b6-9b5e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html?hpid=z2
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-good-catholics-dont-have-mate-rabbits-n289336
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