World Overpopulation Myth Debunked

So I got bored and figured out how many square miles a person would have to themselves if land was distributed to all of the approximate 7 billion of earths inhabitants equally. Each person alive would have about 12 square miles all to themselves.

So is the world overpopulated?

No.

Total land area of the world 57,308,738 Sq. Miles
Total Population around 7 billion. (I used 7 billion)

The problem is not too many people. The problem is too many rich people who have no regard for the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong. I know that there are plenty of poor people dynomiting fish.

Okay, so who gets to live in the volcano?



By the way, you divided wrong.


57 308 738 / 7 billion = 0.00818696257

Everyone gets a .008 Square mile.

reply to post by thehoneycomb

Its ok if your 12 miles is a Bread Basket area.

Would suck if its above the Artic Circle.

Jokes aside, its not room thats the problem, its Resources.

The world is Over-populated.

reply to post by Tw0Sides


With 12 square miles you could own a volcano or two.

reply to post by thehoneycomb


There are mountains, tundra, deserts, land covered with ice, volcanic areas, etc. Adjust your calculations to subtract those areas from your original number, unless you're the one who wants to live in the middle of the Sahara, attempt to grow grapes on the side of Mount St. Helens, or cultivate wheat in the Antarctic. Your "debunking" also assumes that we should remove all wilderness to accommodate farm land for humans, which involves killing most species of plants and animals that are not food for humans.

In short, your so-called debunking is lacking substance.

Also, your math is a bit...off.

Antarctica, deserts? How many acres does it take to support a single human? By this I mean how much land must be planted with crops, or used for livestock, how much must have trees to recycle CO2 to keep the entire Earth as we know it going? How much must be ruined in mining operations? How much must be used for industrial land, parking lots, etc. How much must be retained for mother nature so the natural cycles continue?

IT isn't all ours you know.

Originally posted by thehoneycomb
reply to post by Tw0Sides

 

With 12 square miles you could own a volcano or two.

Except that the math wasn't even done properly in the OP.

Let's make these easy:

Let's do the math again, but this time for the entire planet. The total land surface area of Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 24% is mountainous and about 33% is desert. Subtracting this uninhabitable 57% (32,665,981 mi2) from the total land area leaves 24,642,757 square miles or 15.77 billion acres of habitable land.

Divide this figure by the current human population of 7 billion (that's 7,000 million people!) and you get just under one hectare (2.3 acres) per person. If all the habitable land on Earth were equally distributed among all human beings present on Earth, this is the per capita share of good land per person. Again, however, we have not allowed for any nice amenities such as roads, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, parks, golf courses, etc. Even so, could you live on 2.3 acres?

Efforts have been made to estimate the amount of land needed to sustain an average individual human (link). A person living the lifestyle of an average American requires almost 24 acres, ten times the world per capita share.

www.zo.utexas.edu...

The debunking thread has now been debunked.

Sorry wasted space.

Originally posted by Numbers33four
The problem is not too many people. The problem is too many rich people who have no regard for the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong. I know that there are plenty of poor people dynomiting fish.

edit on 19-6-2012 by Numbers33four because: (no reason given)

No actually it's too many people.

And if you consume a lot, you are the problem.

Very simple, but passing the blame on the "rich overlords" somehow gets more support...

Originally posted by Tw0Sides

Jokes aside, its not room thats the problem, its Resources.

Here's where I have a problem with the overpopulation myth. You guys speak of our resources as if they are going somewhere. Are we launching all of our resources out into space or something? Take a good look around you.

I just googled area of glaciated land and found that 10.4% of the Earths land is covered by ice year around.

reply to post by thehoneycomb



To be fair let's look at not just total land but arable and agricultural land:

from the well known what to think site arable and agricultural land

In geography and agriculture, arable land (from Latin arō; “I plough, I farm”) is land that can be used for growing crops.[1] It includes all land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). Abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for arable land are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.[2] As such, it has to be distinguished from agricultural land, which, according to Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) definition, additionally includes
land under permanent crops as well as permanent pastures. In 2008, the world's total arable land amounted to 13,805,153 km², whereas 48,836,976 km² was classified as "agricultural land." [3]

So given these parameters there is 0.006976711 square kilometers of agricultural land per person and 0.001972165 square kilometers of arable land per person.

How much is neded to support a person? there is the answer to whether or not the earth is overpopulated. And it is not wise to factor in too much tech, as tech makes us over reach, which leads to disaster.

I agree with Boncho. Too many people in this world.

Too many of those people don't give a flip about how much they consume.

For the record my wife and I ride bicycles to work, school, and to the market over half the time. Last week we spent five dollars in gas. Does that make me better than the guy driving around in his jacked up Yukon? I don't know, but there is a good argument that it makes me smarter.

Originally posted by thehoneycomb
So I got bored and figured out how many square miles a person would have to themselves if land was distributed to all of the approximate 7 billion of earths inhabitants equally. Each person alive would have about 12 square miles all to themselves.

So is the world overpopulated?

No.

Total land area of the world 57,308,738 Sq. Miles
Total Population around 7 billion. (I used 7 billion)

It is not about Area, We have a lot of that. In the end there is near earth space as well, We would never run out of places to put people. But now lets talk about feeding them all.. Overpopulation needs to looked at from many angles and not just area required.

Also there is all ways build up as well so i recon the equation at the end X 20 storys up

Ok to put this to rest, working from my earlier post where I showed that there are 0.001972 sqaure kilometers of arable land per person...in a quick search I found that each person requires absolute minimum of .2 acres of arable land. This is for not much more than a vegetarian diet. There are 247.1 acrs in a square kilometer. So with all of these figues in mind:

13,805,153 square kilometers of total arable land * acres in a square kilometer * 5(because we each only need .2 acres)

answer: earth may be able to support 17,056,266,531.500000 vegetarians.

But if the earth was distributed equally tommorow I promise you that by Friday there would be wars for the greener pastures.



Subtract land being used to grow crops that are used for animal feed; industrial drops for ethanol, clothing etc; crops that people smoke, snort, shoot; arable land in war torn regions; desertification is increasing...lots of reduction factors.

reply to post by boncho


Yep, I just did all the calculations myself and the figures you supplied are the most accurate. Each person would have roughly 2.3 acres... but one must remember if we tried to inhabit all inhabitable areas of the Earth we would completely suffocate the natural environment and the animals that live in those environments, and that would lead to our own demise.

You can't take the entire planet as being habitable.

Now redo the math using just HABITABLE land and see what you come up with.

Personally, I wouldn't want my 12 miles to be Australian Outback, Sahara desert, Arctic or Antarctic, or Siberian or Canadian tundra, despite there being people that live in some of these locations. There are many other locations almost uninhabitable.

"Congratulations, your 12 sq miles is a sand strewn swath of the Sahara in Southern Libya. Enjoy".

It's also not just land mass that you need to take into account with overpopulation. Given that only 3% of water on the planet is actually FRESH water, try dividing THAT amongst 7 billion and see what you get. Of course, don't forget to take the ice caps out of that 3% first.

Forgiving your math with the corrections already being made by previous posters I got to say... we actually have plenty of land to support our population just not the right skills. The problem being that to many of us want to live these boxed in lives where we sit, eat, sleep, get entertained, think, die, and our buried in boxes of various sizes.
If we could just give up the darn shapes! We could survive if we all went to hunting and gathering, fishing and trapping. We would have to relearn and rediscover the long lost common knowledge of old. You may have to learn to stomach the killing and cooking of a wild animal, learn what plants you can eat and how to make fire and so on. but it is all possible. Not to sound to much like a hippie but you have to drop all your preconceived notions and realize whats really in front of you. But to think that you have to weed garden you never heard of green mulch... to think you have to trim a fruit tree you don't think the natural design of it will work well? Here is a clue, there is plenty of room if your not worried about claiming it like a king and just use it as a temporary location for what you need let the others around you be entertainment and don't worry about things like this internet... we don't need it..

A centipede can walk fine until he thinks about how hes doing it, then he starts stumbling from trying to figure it out.