Now lets engage in some basic math,
World Population is 6,827,090,975 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 06/13/10 at 21:28 UTC (EST+5)
The State of Rhode Island by land mass =1,214 sq mi = 776,960 acre = 3,760,486,400 yd²
Now divide 6,827,090,975 by 3,760,486, by you will get 1.81548083 that is how many people you will have to put in one yd² is that crowed, yes very, but remember that is the smallest State in the Union.
Rhode Island 1.81548083 people per yd²
Lets take Texas the second largest State by land mass in the Union.
State of Texas =268,820 sq mi= 172,044,800 acre =832,696,832,000 yd²
Same thing but now you are dividing yd² by people, 832,696,832,000 by 6,827,090,975 you will get 121.969494 that is how many yd² that each person could live on.
Texas 121.980053 yd² per 1 person
Now this doesn’t deal with sustainability which I am not going to go in to here.
Ok maybe for just a bit. In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich predicted famine in the 1970s and 1980s, well he was wrong. As the population grows, producers will improve techniques to increase output, or they will switch to alternates. Take Whale oil, not to sustainable but it was replaced by Petroleum. Why did Petroleum replace Whale oil? Well, it became cheaper and was more abundant thanks to John D. Rockefeller who started to make his own barrels and ship his oil by train(that is the short of it). You could say that Rockefeller SAVED the Whales. One more thing comes to mind that is the Simon-Ehrlich wager, I wont describe it hear but you can find some info on wikipedia.
Putting the sustainability aside, most people that say or worry about over population suffer from a problem of perspective, that is they look at their surroundings, oh lets say New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, and see so many freaking people, they’re everywhere. Well yes, they are but have you ever been out side of your little bubble to lets say fly over country and seen the vacantness well I have, miles and miles of NOTHING and NOBODY. Perspective will always trump reality.
List of links
Simon-Ehrlich wager
World Population
Texas
Rhode Island
John D. Rockefeller
Julian Lincoln Simon
Paul R. Ehrlich
calculator
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Over population, really? by Noah Brewer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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