Six Lives and Counting

The author even mentioned it:

"As with the cat with nine lives, the disasters predicted by the prognosticators of doom, from Thomas Malthus in the 18th century to Paul Ehrlich in the 20th, have always failed to materialize."

He is wrong. Ehrlich's Population Bomb has already gone off, and all the problems Updegrove mentions are exactly traceable to the fallout. No, it didn't happen as fast as Ehrlich predicted, but it is simply a slower explosion than he suggested.

Here's a reasonably simple way of evaluating the situation. Until such time as atomic fusion becomes available as a practical source of energy, we are limited to only three available energy sources: insolation, fossil fuels resulting from past insolation, and atomic fission. The first two have limits that are not alterable by human intervention. The third is scarcely viable at the present technological level.

That includes all sources of energy for humans, including the energy used to grow food, whether as insolation or to produce fertilizers and pesticides. The more humans, the more energy is necessary. At the present moment, humans are already testing the limits of the planet in terms of biomass carrying capacity, regardless of the potential means of intervention.

Incorrect on the sources of energy. You also have kinetic (hydro-electric power plants in dams & wind turbines, etc) & for lack of a better generic term, thermo-reactive (solar, heat exchangers, etc). The kinetic energy plants are a sizeable portion of the current grid, and the tech for the thermo-reactive types are getting better all the time.

We aren't testing the planet at this point, our current food production, waste & energy management techniques are just way too inefficient. Advances in these areas could allow the Earth to comfortably support 20 billion, or so, people. There hasn't been a lot of motivation to pour research into these areas though.

Yuck. A planet with 20 billion people is three times more hellish than it is now. It's really not necessary to blanket the earth with humanity. How about we ban Viagra and make contraception cheap and plentiful?

There are problems besides adequate food to consider, because ecological damage rises with every additional human. The loss of wilderness and wildlife, of green spaces, and plain old un-messed-with mom Nature is already catastrophic. There are no good reasons to support continued population growth, especially given humanity's history of refusal to manage resources in any way other than insanely shorsightedly and stupidly.

@tc --

And if they all get Facebook accounts...

Quoting:How about we ban Viagra and make contraception cheap and plentiful?

How about conquering space, the final frontier! isn't easier?

>How about conquering space, the final frontier! isn't easier?

So long as our lift-off doesn't last more than 4 hours. In that case, consult your rocket scientist.

@JaseP: Invalid objection. Hydroelectric and wind are ultimately both solar-powered: the energy to supply each comes from the sun. The amount used to evaporate water, for example, is no longer available for other purposes, and that is what raises the water so we can tap its energy when it goes over the dam.

You have to look at the whole picture, not just one little piece of it.

@albinard --

Yes, and that evaporated water rains back down somewhere, etc.

You have to look at the whole picture, not just one little piece of it.

You could argue that all (except nuclear) ultimately come from the sun

Coal/gas/oil etc are all storage mechanisms from the Sun's energy thousands of years ago.

Arguing about the terminology is a pointless exercise in this regard.

You could even argue on that basis that coal, oil and gas are actually renewable energy. We just consume it far faster than we can make it :P

You could argue that the all ultimately come from A sun (star) sine even uranium is manufactured in a stellar furnace,... which ironically makes everything a fusion derivative... But I digress...