# Scientists Debate How Much Population the World Can Sustain.  In the days of sailing ships, sailors used to leave goats on islands to ensure fresh meat on return trips. But the animals bred faster than the sailors could eat them, and goats ate all the vegetation and began to starve. They also screwed up the environment so that native species couldn’t survive, either. Biologists say this lesson applies to humans and point out how our “island” has suffered. There is air and water pollution, falling water tables, climate change and rampant extinction of wild plants and animals. Humans are respomsible for increased temperatures, melting glaciers and rising seas, Too many people are burning too many fossil fuels. We’ve created this problem because we’ve had virtually free energy in the form of fossil fuels.Every year, at least 91 million humans are added to the world population. The Earth’s carrying capacity is somewhere in the range of 4 billion to 5 billion people but there are 6.5 billion of us. Half of the world’s population has little access to medicine, electricity, safe water and reliable food supplies. You might have 50 billion, but the quality of life might not be pleasing. If the 1.3 million residents of Franklin County had to live on the resources the county could provide, Waite figures, only about 100,000 would live here. We import the vast majority of our needs.

  The US has the resources to sustain less than half of its current population of 300 million. Americans, who make up 5% of the world’s population, use 25% of its resources. The average American’s footprint is about 22 acres. The average citizen of India has a footprint one-sixteenth that size. If all 6 billion people were to share the world’s resources equally, Americans would have to reduce consumption by 80% for each of us to have a footprint of about 4.4 acres. Carrying capacity and footprint are tied to the global economy, which has quadrupled since the world’s population doubled. That leads to a fear that slowing population growth might not curb greenhouse gas production if more people achieve Western lifestyles. India and China are developing rapidly and have affected climate change. China is opening one coal-fired power plant a week to meet electricity demand. Everyone in China wants their own apartment and car, which is going to have a massive effect on the planet. How many people can the Earth can sustain? That it depends on whether you want to live like an Indian or an American. Each American consumes 1,760 pounds annually, mainly because of the grains used to feed farm animals. If everyone on the planet consumed that much grain, Earth would support only about 2.5 billion people. But in India, people consume about 440 pounds each. If everyone else in the world did likewise, the world’s grain would support about 10 billion people. Growing 1 ton of grain requires 1,000 tons of water. There are water shortages in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and as water is diverted from agriculture to support growing urban populations, more grain must be imported. Soybeans are in demand for biodiesel and ethanol production vies with food for corn. By 2008, half of the U.S. corn crop will go to ethanol. Seventy percent of all corn imports in the world come from the U.S. and competition for energy and food will change the landscape. We don’t have enough land worldwide to meet those demands. Demand for food, fuel and materials already consumes more trees and crops than are being grown worldwide February 20, 2007 The Columbus Dispatch rw   Karen Gaia says: I believe we are currently growing by about 78 billion people a year, not 91 billion, but that is still 78 billion too many. 021405

That cartoon should go global and the maker should reap a harvest from such a poignency. Fantastic.

However if necessary lift the copyright.
The b.p.w.nerd has got it right too. So many heads in the sand on this. It only takes an election-time pressy in the hip pocket and the saga worsens.

Even if we halved the size of our houses in the Western world we’re still looking at tribulation.  The last (the indigenous) will be first if not only chaos reigns.

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  B.P.W.N.
      the information you present is nothing new but.
      78 BILLION TOO MANY ?  JUST WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST ?  CULLING !
      There is a school of thought that the AIDS virus was an attempt to do “exactly that” in Africa,  and it,s actions in spreading throughout the world were unforeseen.
                      D.D.