What Is The Optimum Population Of Humans ?
Pardon me, but aren't we too many? The last population count had we humans at about 6.6 billion and growing. There are predictions that half of all species will go extinct by 2100. We live on a zero-sum planet. One species gain is subtracted from another species and/or the environment. Global warming is a clear example of how human activity can cause and/or exacerbate physical changes in our world. We can discuss lower greenhouse gas emission strategies but these are really peripheral issues. Simply humans should optimumly be less in number. And if so, what is the right population number? And how do we arrive and maintain that number? It's in our capability to reach an answer and effect it's outcome. Antibiotics and birth control are our tools.
But first, what is the right population number? Let's use America as an anedotal model for world population and it's environmental impact. We Americans do use 25% of world resources and are only 4% of world population but we are rightly or wrongly supposed to be the template of what many of the world's people dream of attaining. Please note how many immigrants want to come to the U.S. .
I think that in the late 1940s and early 1950s world population attained the optimum higher limits of human population. At that time it was estimated to be 2.4 billion. In the U.S. at that time there ominous signs that the human attitude towards the planet had exceeded prudent behavior and entered the hubris zone. Two anecdotal events bring this unhealthy attitude change coupled with the technology to effect the change into view. One was the birth of the military-indutrial complex which mantra is " In Growth We Trust" or " First Blow It Up And Then Rebuild It". The second example was the start of explosive growth in Las Vegas. Here was the sin of bringing water from pristine environments so toilets could be flushed in a city built by losers!
The human classical period was circa 1500 B.C. to 500 A.D. The population at those times were app. 200 million. Therefore the range of optimum human population ranges between 200 million and 2.4 billion.
But first, what is the right population number? Let's use America as an anedotal model for world population and it's environmental impact. We Americans do use 25% of world resources and are only 4% of world population but we are rightly or wrongly supposed to be the template of what many of the world's people dream of attaining. Please note how many immigrants want to come to the U.S. .
I think that in the late 1940s and early 1950s world population attained the optimum higher limits of human population. At that time it was estimated to be 2.4 billion. In the U.S. at that time there ominous signs that the human attitude towards the planet had exceeded prudent behavior and entered the hubris zone. Two anecdotal events bring this unhealthy attitude change coupled with the technology to effect the change into view. One was the birth of the military-indutrial complex which mantra is " In Growth We Trust" or " First Blow It Up And Then Rebuild It". The second example was the start of explosive growth in Las Vegas. Here was the sin of bringing water from pristine environments so toilets could be flushed in a city built by losers!
The human classical period was circa 1500 B.C. to 500 A.D. The population at those times were app. 200 million. Therefore the range of optimum human population ranges between 200 million and 2.4 billion.
Labels: birth control and non-humanspecies extinctintion, optimum population
posted by Barry Leonardini at 10:41 AM
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