From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: population load question
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 23:12:52 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.205216.2038@den.mmc.com>, crabe@den.mmc.com (Carlyle J. Rabe 7-1697) writes:
|> Has it ocurred to any of you population explosion gloom and doomers
|> that if the entire population of the world were moved into the state
|> of Texas that the population density still would not exceed that of
|> Queens, NY?  With this in mind, how can you argue overpopulation
|> and keep a straight face?  Please explain.

Well, for those of you naysayers that just don't get it I'll attempt
an analogy to help you start thinking, and maybe even understand the
concept.

Imagine a milk farm that has a herd of cows, for example.  Suppose you
say to the farmer (old MacDonald, let's say), that you'd like to give
him all the cows off your farm, because you're tired of the farming
business and want to sell off your farmland to a developer.  To this,
old MacDonald says, "my farm is already at carrying capacity, so while
I'd love to have all your cows, I just don't have the extra rangeland
I'd need to support 'em".  But you are unfazed by this and ask him,
"has it occured to you that my entire herd of cows plus your entire
herd of cows can all fit into your barn?"  But wise old MacDonald
says, "yeah, but I'd need to start buying hay to keep 'em alive and
healthy and productive, and I don't want to do that."

Imagine the earth is old MacDonald's farm.  The difference is that 
that unlike the farm example, the earth is all we've got.  We can't
just go off and start getting lots more external inputs to keep up
with the demands of a growing population forever.  The earth, like the
pastures of a farm that can only produce hay at a certain rate, can
only produce renewable resources at a certain rate.  We can tweak
things here and there to optimize the rate of resource renewal,
but each increment is more and more difficult to achieve and comes
and increasingly greater cost.  What's worse is that it is thought
some resources are not renewable at all.  The other very bad thing
going on is that we are already consuming/destroying certain resources
at a rate which is not keeping pace with the earth's ability to
renew them.  And in many cases, we are taking a short-sighted view
and using up and/or losing certain resources in a way that impairs or
reduces the earth's ability to renew them.

I dunno how good of an anlogy it is, but the point is that external
inputs are required to keep all the people of Queens alive and at their
current standard of living.  They don't live off of the land they live
on.  There is a large amount of "open" land devoted to keeping the
people of Queens at their current standard of living.  I put the word
open in quotes because, it in fact, is not really open.  It is already
in use to keep the folks in Queens alive by growing their food, and/or
providing all the various material inputs into what defines Queens' 
standard of living (food, building materials, energy, minerals, water-
shed, consumer goods, durable goods, garbage dump(s), etc.).

Another example of overpopulation is a fish tank.  Almost without
exception, the common household fish tank is overpopulated (as long as
it contains living fish!).  That is to say, a fish tank is almost always
far, far, far above it's carrying capacity (it's ability to sustain the
life that it contains over a long period of time without external inputs
like fish food and oxygen via a bubbler).  A natural pond with a fish,
critters and plants is generally the opposite of a fish tank.  If it
were overpopulated, it would not sustain the population of fish it
contained for long without die-off.  In nature there is commonly a
natural cycle for populations of different species that alternates
between die-off and population growth--so it's kind of like your house
thermostat might work; self-regulating.

Last example: the controversial Biosphere II project.  This is where
some folks have sealed themselves into a miniature eco-system.  The
idea is that this mini eco-system is supposed to be *at* carrying
capacity.  That is, theoretically the plants and people in there
should be able to live in there indefinitely.  The difficulties
they've been having illustrates what a delicate and complex system
something like this is.  If the folks in there were to start having
lots of unprotected sex that results in births and population
growth (like we have in the real world), they would doom the
project because they would have destroyed the balance in there by
exceeding the human carrying capacity of their Biosphere.  Whether
they could still all fit comfortably within only one of the
compartments/areas is immaterial to the question of whether they are
overpopulated or not.

Sooner or later the human population will level off or decline just like
it does for various animal species in nature.  The question is will we
do it voluntarily, or will we let nature do it for us?  I prefer the
former.  It's a lot more humane and a lot less painful.

Those of you that are interested in learning more about the population
crisis (I know it sounds dramatic, but I'm convinced there really is
a crisis--most people just don't admit or even think about it), check
out Paul Ehrlich's book "The Population Explosion".  Very readable,
very understandable stuff.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist
to understand it...

Also you could get in touch with groups like "Population-Environment
Balance" (1325 G. Street, N.W., Suite #1003, Washington DC, 20005)
or Zero Population Growth (aka ZPG).

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: sci.environment