From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: population load question
Date: 7 Sep 92 22:21:34 GMT
	<1992Sep4.165811.9405@samba.oit.unc.edu>
	<1992Sep6.160027.11632@cs.rochester.edu>
	<1992Sep6.201433.4141@meteor.wisc.edu>
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
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In-reply-to: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu's message of 6 Sep 92 20:14:33 GMT

In article <1992Sep6.201433.4141@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:

   In article <1992Sep6.160027.11632@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
   >In article <1992Sep4.165811.9405@samba.oit.unc.edu> Bruce.Scott@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Bruce Scott) writes:
   >>In article <1992Sep3.171421.5807@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:

   >>>I hope you display more rigor in your physics than you do in this
   >>>posting.  For starters, define "carrying capacity".

   >>Carrying capacity, n. Number of people who can live in a sustainable way
   >>in arable land areas of the earth's surface in reasonable comfort with
   >>reasonable nutrition.

   >Ah.  With *what technology*?  Only current technology?  Technology of
   >1000 years ago?  1000 years from now?  Your definition of "carrying
   >capacity" is so imprecise as to be useless.

   OK, how about...

Minor niggle, I generally agree with the overall idea of your definition.

   Carrying capacity, n. Number of people who can live in a sustainable way
   in arable land areas of the earth's surface in reasonable comfort with
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Why this restrictive? For one it is more efficient to live on the
non-arable land and live off the arable land; the definition of
arable is technology dependent; and you ignore the oceans...

   reasonable nutrition, at a given technology level, (where technology
   is broadly defined to include social, economic and governmental structures)
   sharing the planet with a large diverse self-sustaining population of
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
other species.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's a tough one. How large and diverse is large and diverse?
Does self-sustaining mean in absence of humans? How do we determine
that? Note in no circumstances would the species biomass mix remain
even aprroximately constant if humans disappeared - unless we abandon
all agriculture and animal husbandry. On what time scales do we
require the animal population to be self-sustaining (and presumably
"stable").

 ...
   You may counter that technological growth has been far more steady than
   economic growth, but this reassures me little. It is clear to me that
   the technologies that we need to improve to stabilize the environment are
   not engineering or agricultural but social and economic techniques, and
   increasingly so. In such fields, the record of our species is much
   less impressive. The existence of technical methods has little value if
   the mechanisms for implementing those methods is absent. 

Yup. They're also worthless if the _will_ to implement them is not there.

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	*
* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	*
*  Ya know... you penguin types offend me. ...			*
*  My Gosh... Life is offensive!!   				*
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