The Effective World Population
Posted by feww on January 14, 2008
57 Billion People and Counting…
To the one half of the world who live on less than 2-dollars a day (they receive 300 times less per capita energy than the US citizens) the world must look extremely overpopulated with an effective population of 57 billion! [The EU27 with per capita GDP of $29,900 would account for 21 billion and the United States—per capita GDP of $43,223—for 18 billion of the total effective population.]
Related to the comments on the previous post
EDRO 
Russ said
…and don’t forget the underpinnings of human population growth! At http://www.panearth.org you will find a narrated slide show that speaks to these issues.
terres said
Russ–Your slide show seems very long. Unfortunately, the moderators are unable to invest the time right now. If you have a new point to make, however, we would be happy to discuss it with you.
Are you hypothesizing that the world is overpopulated? More than one half of the world’s 6.6 billion people remain in suspended animation for all intents and purposes, while the richest 17% consume nearly 90% of everything! What if instead of the richest 17% only the wealthiest 10% or even the top 4% consumed 90% of everything? The problem, the overall size of the consumption pie, would still persist.
Russ said
Terres — Thanks for your reply. I am saying that, although such venerable institutions such as the UN & FAO advocate expanding new technologies to increase food production, there is a hidden difficulty with this position, a position known as “the food race.” The food race is the term used to describe the endeavor to keep food supply at or ahead of demand. However, in Wikipedia, the “Food Race” entry states “intensification of cultivation in response to population growth—-merely leads to still more population growth.” In other words, global increases in food production precipitates global population growth. This perspective has been pointed out in both the
Japan Times and the
Christian Science Monitor. The narrated movie / slide show at http://www.PanEarth.org clearly elucidates the impact of continuing the food race. This impact includes the issue that you mention — resource consumption. It is imperative that we understand the long term impact of continually increasing food production.
feww said
Russ – Please see Topsoil.
https://edro.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/topsoil/
STEPHANY DAUM said
we now have the means to spread infertitility in food or water supplies. just a 5 year halt on births globally, might be the only aanswer.
feww said
“It’s the economy, stupid!”