[TL;DR The Earth could sustainably support 100 billion people]
Historical Population Growth
Key Takeaways
Carrying capacity of the land = population level
Global glaciers retreated = more fertile land available
Agriculture invented ~10,000 year ago
Farming technologies: ex) iron plow
New strains of crops
Population limiting factor = amount of food being produced
~1300 = pullback from the Black Death
~1600 = start of exponential population growth
South American & Meso-American food crops introduced to Eastern hemisphere: ex) potatoes & beans from South America, peppers & corn/maize from Meso/Central America, tomatoes from Mexico
The Columbian Exchange
Increased yield per crop & greater diversity of food/nutrition
~1800s = population growth goes vertical
Industrialization = new energy sources
Rapid increase of productive capacity
Directly or indirectly promote the agricultural industry
Agricultural machinery & modern supply chains
Modern chemical industry = modern fertilizers
More productivity from farmland
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Limiting Factors
Climate Niche
The climates in which it is ideal for humans, and many animals, to live is shrinking due to climate change. With that being said some humans do choose to live in extreme conditions due to heritage or work opportunity. Another problem is that we generally like to settle near coastlines which are vulnerable to erosion and rising sea levels.
”The study points out that industrial timber plantations, mature oil palm estates and other specifically planted forests add to global tree cover.”
Food supply
Climate change also affects the amount of land that can sustain agriculture. There are many efforts to prevent desertification, but it is hard to deter severe weather patterns causing damage to crops.
The future may hold more greenhouses for agriculture as it proves resilient against inclement weather and even facilitate growing in arid conditions. Ultimately, this relies upon profit viability and a cost benefit analysis of expensive infrastructure versus traditional agriculture. I believe it will only become more incentivized through innovation in automation, transportation, and more.
“About ninety-seven percent of waste produced in the US today is industrial solid waste (ISW) produced during processes such as mining and mass agriculture. The remaining three percent is what we usually think of when we think of garbage: municipal solid waste.”
Carbon emissions could be considered an economic inefficiency in the sense that it is a negative externality to life on Earth. A fully circular and sustainable economy would prevent many negative externalities such as chemical pollution and habitat destruction.
Fertility Rates
Globally fertility rates have already peaked and many countries are below the replacement rate of 2.1 which means there is continuously less and less young people than old people.
Population Demographics
This is the real problem with declining populations. Pension systems can often rely on the economy that is supported by the taxes of the young working population. For as long as we have known GDP has been steadily growing and this has meant taxes provided a justification for increasing government spending. However, this will not always be the case if population starts declining, although humanoid robotics may change this dilemma. Currently, many governments sit in budget deficits (spending more than they’re making) with immense amounts of debt. This debt must be paid off sometime somehow and it is passing the buck to the next generation. As a techno-optimist I want to believe that innovation in the 21st century will usher in a post scarcity economy, however if this does not happen then future generations are fiscally ruined.
The Overpopulation Myth
The Earth could sustainably support 10x the current global population, given the necessary innovation, investment, and infrastructural change.
Thomas Robert Malthus, an English economist, in 1798 proposed the theory of a “Malthusian trap.”
This “Malthusian trap” predicts that the human population has a hard limit given the available resources on the Earth, and modern pundits may tell you that our current global population has reached near that limit. Well here on this blog I argue that this is simply not true.
The Labor Market
A large part of modern discussions about the labor market and economic systems is based off of things like Keynesian or Marxian economics. However, these theories were only invented less than 200 years ago. Sometimes I wonder about the preoccupation of these structures when economics is most definitely a soft science, meaning that we have no empirical basis to make judgements or conclusions. With this being said let’s discuss some of the common tropes of “economic problems” caused by “overpopulation”.
“The “lump of labor” fallacy is the assumption that there is a fixed amount of work.
It's a tempting idea to some because it seems to be true. For example, jobs can be lost to automation and immigration,” Wolla wrote. “However, that is not the full story.”
If the fallacy were true, jobs could not be created, just redistributed, he wrote. The essay outlined two “lessons” that run counter to the fallacy:
Job losses in one industry can support growth in other industries.
The economic “pie” is not a fixed size.”
Structural Unemployment
The answer to structural unemployment is simply education. Obviously this costs money, but I think cultivating a culture of continuous learning, especially in an age of such abundant information, would be just as impactful.
“You are always a student, never a master.“ - Conrad Hall (American cinematographer 1926 - 2003)
‘Cities of the Future’
In order to house such immense populations we must rethink how we build cities. Nowadays, there are many who claim to be building cities of the future, but quite unsurprisingly these projects turn out to be burning money pits that are eventually abandoned.
I will discuss more about urban planning & organic growth of cities in other posts, but for now let’s theorize how to sustainably house billions upon billions of people without sacrificing quality of life.
“A portmanteau of architecture and ecology… architectural design principles for very densely populated and ecologically low-impact human habitats. — Coined in 1969 by Architect Paolo Soleri…”
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