Talk:Carrying capacity

message: Amazingly, the logistic curve is not mentioned here at all, even though carrying capacity is actually a property of that curve. :-P This is akin to not mentioning the greenhouse effect in an article on global warming, or forgetting to mention that earth is a planet. ;-) Kim Bruning 09:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logistic curve 

message: i have moved the following sentence not connected to any thought pattern to this talk page until someone can sort out its role (if any) in the subject article:
"Used in accordance with Fair usehttp://williamcalvin.com/bk5/bk5ch6.htm."
Anlace 18:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extraneous sentence

message: Hi - I've been resolving a dispute over this article over the past few weeks, and would like to present my recommendations for the article (or at elast those which are relevant) here.  Note that they are only suggestions, but I'd hope that in time they'd serve to improve the article as a whole.
* Source all/as many as possible additions per WP:CITE and WP:V
* Most importantly, keep a Neutral Point of View
* Avoid weasel words
* Discuss major changes on article talk page
* Break "Critiques of Applications to humans" off into a sub section
* Clean up article as a whole, removing POV, SPAG errors and weasel words
* Perhaps add a "response to critiques" section, into which the counter arguements (fully sourced) against the critiques can go
* Discuss all major cahnges on this, the talk page
* It may also help to try out major changes in the article sandbox - Carrying capacity/temp
I hope this can help to bring this article forward, and make it a better resource for thouse who look for it.  Please direct any repsonses to my comments here (or to my talk page).  I will try to help out with these changes when I get time.  Thanks Martinp23 19:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This needs a NPOV tag added to it.  Will go do that now... 71.76.235.161 01:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article request/guidelines 

message: the graph for carrying capacity can be found nowhere on earth. WHo has taken this jewel from among us??
it was a jew.
a black one
:Here is what Derrick Jensen, a great writer and philosophy says about carrying capacity in his talks: it's the number of a type of population that can be supported on one place. He comes up with all this mostly, because so many people say there are too many people on the planet. It's not only the number of people that's problematic here. As he says: you can have a billion dear on one small island and it won't be any problem as long as they don't eat or shit, but just stand. So the problem with any population is the amount of damage they do to the place they are living (humans, animals, plants and the landbase in general). Maybe, just as a suggestion, we could add this to the main page. I mean, at least Derrick's sort of "definition". I think it's short and makes it all clear in a simple way. As I say: just as a suggestion. -- termi 23:19, 28. Dez. 2006 (CEST)
Perhaps carrying capacity should be broken into GENERAL i.e. bandwith (even telephone wires have a 'carrying capacity') & BIOLOGICAL. Then again both are so similar, the GENERAL term sim & BIOLOGICAL serve to explain each other.
::oppose the unsigned post above.  this article should not be deleted with trivial uses in other applications. if you want to discuss bandwidth, go to that article. Anlace 04:02, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Carrying capacity 

message: Unfortunately THE EARTH IS FINITE and the author of this section fails to understand this SIMPLE point. Human migrations aren't possible across national boundaries anymore. Unfortunately the Earth is one large 'bounded space' which includes arable land which by ALL accounts is shrinking. Saying that carrying capacity doesn't apply to humans implys humans aren't animals thus they are immune from the law of evolution, and natural selection. [Thus this article discredits evolution, another term that is having enough problems in American public schools, without this 'Critique']
If Wikipedia editors feel that Critiques should be a seperate section, then I feel a 'response to critiques' is necessary. However I feel this solution would make the article less readable, so I'm asking for other ideas.
Lee Wells 21:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: whoever authored this section has a strong POV that flies in the face of facts.  the mis-spellings are also a tip off to the intellectual origin.  the whole section can be deleted until someone comes up with a better section. Anlace 04:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with Critiques

message: The article states: "If the average American today owned 40 acres of arable land, there would be about 11.3 million Americans, instead of over 300 million, conversely our living standard would be higher. Most Americans would probably be farmers"
That statement is false for two reasons.
First, farming productivity in the U.S. is high enough today so that only 2% of the population needs to be farmers. This is true, regardless of whether the U.S. has 11 million people, or 300 million people.
Secondly, a long time ago, when almost everyone worked on farms, the standard of living was lower, not higher. If everyone is working on a farm, then there would be no one to build washing machines, refrigerators, telephones, or light bulbs. Without these things, our standard of living would be lower, not higher. Grundle2600 19:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed this section; it seems to be off-topic and seems to abuse the numbers it cites in making its dubious claims. -- Beland 00:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This part of the article is wrong

message: This part of the article is what makes it correct: One can also argue that if the United States of America have lost World War II if its population been that small compared to the rest of the world, so living sustainably when the rest of the world does not would have its drawbacks.
Notice the word SUSTAINABLY the reason that 2% of the American population is all that it takes to feed the rest of the United States is that it is done UNSUSTAINABLY the entire article is on CARRYING CAPACITY which by definition is what you mean by SUSTAINABILITY.
the only thing that is wrong with the statement is that it only implied sustainability a problem  i will fix right now.  Lee Wells 02:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: No it is not

message: Does anyone else here think it might be a good idea to inclue a bit of information of the use of carrying capacity in modelling? For one the theory of carrying capacity is applied widely in Applied Ecology and conservation though the use of population viability analysis etc. Surely this article is a little too centered on humans? --Philthemancunian 23:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Modelling and Ecological Applications of carrying capacity

message: I don't understand what citations are required in this section. It certainly could be written better, but the point seems so simple that there is nothing to cite. I'll try some other ways of explaining it.
If an organism consumes the resources that it requires to sustain its current population faster than those resources can renew, then its population is by definition above the carrying capacity. I don't see how anyone can disagree with this. I didn't figure out how to state this concept in the definition of carrying capacity. It seems to be a natural conclusion from the definition.
Coal and oil are renewable resources, yet humans are clearly burning them faster than they can renew. Maybe we should cite that coal and oil took hundreds of millions of years to create. Coal and oil are not necessary for human life, but one must agree that humans require those resources to feed the current 6.7 billion population. In other words, coal and oil are necessary to support the population. I don't see a need to cite anything for this observation.
You can make an argument that it is possible to feed 6.7b humans without coal and oil, but that position would certainly be built on a lot of speculation and simulation. That position would need citations. That would be theory - a situation that does not exist, so it can't be used to say humans are not past the carrying capacity. It could be used to say that the carrying capacity will rise to meet and exceed the population, but still we are left with the fact that right now we are above the carrying capacity.
You can argue that oil and coal will last a long time and therefore "temporary" is "a long time", but so what? Carrying capacity is not about "long time" or "short time" it is indefinite. In other words as long as the conditions remain the same, it will go on forever. Clearly coal and oil will not go on forever so unless something else is invented (which could be as complex as a completely solar based energy system serving everyone) to allow us to produce the required food without using resources faster than they renew, the population must shrink.
We are discussing this "carrying capacity" concept to understand the current state and what we must do to deal with the future. If we somehow let ourselves be fooled into thinking that we are not way above the carrying capacity, then we are allowing ourselves to conclude that we don't need to do anything differently. We don't need to invent some new stuff that will give us the energy to feed 6.7b without consuming resources faster than they can renew. Do we need to cite something to comprehend this?
You might point out that the sun will burn out in 5b years, and therefore all species are over populated. This is true, and therefore over the next several tens or hundreds of millions of years we must reduce the human population so that we can live comfortably within the diminishing area that is still hospitable on the planet. Clearly this does not require immediate understanding and action. Oil and coal on the other hand will run out within a time span that is similar to a human life time (I agree that a citation is needed for this sentence, because it is not common knowledge when oil will run out). If nothing is invented or changed to raise the carrying capacity, then the population will drop as oil and coal become scarce. Johntaves (talk) 05:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  5.3 Humans are exceeding 

message: "The World3 model of Donella Meadows deals with carrying capacity at its core." What does this statement mean? Can someone put it in clearer language please? SweetNightmares (talk) 01:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: The section on ecological footprint was greatly expanded, using material from the Global Footprint Network, (http:///www.footprintnetwork.org) if at all.  I don't think that's a reliable source.  I haven't checked whether the material really was taken from that web site, as the reference tags are vague as to where on the site they were referring to.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 07:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global Footprint Network 

message: Hi, I've fixed a number of citations but half of the links in this article are dead and half of the citations are so vague as to be non-existent. In addition some are more than a little dodgy The Sex Lives of Cannibals is described by a leading internet bookseller as a 'comic masterwork of travel writing' for instance, which doesn't really fit in the the encyclopedia thang. I'm going to try to (slowly) work through the entire thing finding reliable, viewable, assertions for everything.
I've noticed that there is also a page Tourism carrying capacity (which I know nothing about). The section in Carrying capacity on this subject is almost as large, which is ridiculous and I would suggest either that the section in this article gets merged with it? talk tospy on Kae 18:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I think the scope of Optimum population is too similar to this one to justify separate articles. Optimum population could very well be a separate section within the Humans section in the Carrying capacity article, and any major differences between the two parameters explained there. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Very well, it seems optimum is rather distinct. I'll remove the merge-tags. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:06, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Optimum population]] 

message: The first paragraph should define the concept and put it in context. Carrying capacity is a theoretical ecological concept. It involves a one dimensional model that includes no environmental or species factors. It has no operational definition that can be used to evaluate any real world situation.
The first sentence is....
"The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. "
Better as....
Carrying capacity is a theoretical ecological concept that describes how a population responds to limits an otherwise stable environment in which resources and competitors are constant. It is formally defined as the maximal number of a species that can be supported by an environment. Mathematically it is the value of K in the logistic equation which is used to describe population growth in limited environments. In the real world resources and the population of competitors and food items are always changing, so it is difficult identify whether or not any species has reached or exceeded its carrying capacity. Still, the concept is useful in fisheries management in trying to identify maximum yield, and in ....
The next sentence is nonsensical and repetitive....what is the concept of population equilibrium and how is it different? Environmental maximal load is jargon for carrying capacity, and you cant use a word to define itself.
"In population biology, carrying capacity is defined as the environment's maximal load,[1] which is different from the concept of population equilibrium."
The next paragraph immediately jumps to humans without giving any discussion of whether or not there are any animal or plant examples of carrying capacity.
"For the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical care are sometimes considered as part of the necessary establishment. As population density increases, birth rate often decreases and death rate typically increases."
The next paragraph is full of woulds...a signal that means that we are not really sure. To make it definite it should be couched in will...
Avram Primack (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly! I came here to learn about ecology and population dynamics, not read some whiny polemic diatribe cited to extremist fringe sources. This article is highly skewed from the conventional concept. I'm going to heavily trim the sections -everything but the intro. Leo Breman (talk) 20:42, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still very incomplete and focused on human populations 

message: An actual, verifiable scientific attempt at determining human carrying capacity of Earth requires you to set upper limits on innovation (which happens to affect resource discovery & utilization), information storage & sharing, and cooperation.  Anyone who makes such claims has historically & inevitably always ended up looking like a fool.  -Reticuli  71.72.161.102 (talk) 20:40, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you produce arguments? 136.153.22.8 (talk) 03:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's certainly up for debate, see: Malthusian trap --Daliposc (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human Carrying Capacity of Planet Earth is Complete Garbage 

message: This article could be expanded to cover more information. I feel as though it has a shallow exploration of carrying capacity and could have more topics covered rather than just the factors that govern carrying capacity and the ecological footprint. 
Pipertownsend (talk) 06:04, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Critique  

message: this assessment has recently been updated - see katherine richardsons report from last month ~~ 123.208.37.87 (talk) 03:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  planetary boundaries