7 billion people

[Delawaredave5]

Interesting video on global population growth.

I always wonder how much of a country's economic / stock market growth is simply a function of its underlying demographics.

Read somewhere where author believes US growth in prosperity from 1982 onward is nearly totally explained by the baby boomers entering workforce.

YouTube - The seventh billion economist.com/video

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

7 billion people is depressing.

Years ago, Isaac Asimov was featured on a show that interviewed visionaries. When he was asked a question something like what was the most important thing in the world, he said, reducing our population. If we can't do that, nothing we do to save species, reduce pollution, etc, will do any good. He did not impress the interviewer, who went on to do several shows interviewing a poet.

The world population must have been about 5 million at that time.

Our kids and their kids will not have a good time of it.

 

[sailor]

7 billion people is depressing.

Years ago, Isaac Asimov was featured on a show that interviewed visionaries.
...
The world population must have been about 5 million at that time.

Ed,
Asimov was old, but not that old
World population was estimated to be about 5 mil around 8000 BC ( prehistory: Definition from Answers.com )

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

My bad. 5 BILLION.

 

[Westernskies]

Look at this another way.

If all 7 Billion of those people lived in Texas,(substitute France, Afghanistan, Burma, Somalia- the math is the same.) the population density would be less than that of Greater NYC, according to the 2000 Census. And at 268,500 square miles Texas represents less than one half of 1% of the total land area in the world. Excluding Anarctica, there would still be 52,000,000 square miles of uninhabited landmass on Planet Earth.

7 billion is a lot of people, but the world is also a very big place.

 

[NW-Bound]

If all 7 Billion of those people lived in Texas, the population density would be less than that of Greater NYC, according to the 2000 Census.

Hey, that sounds like fun. Let's all move to Texas. With so many people, we can trample out all the scorpions, eat all the rattle snakes (I have heard fried up, they are like chicken nuggets), and spray away all of the chiggers.

Just don't tell REWahoo beforehand.

 

[REWahoo]

If all 7 Billion of those people lived in Texas,...

...the traffic in Muleshoe would be as bad as in Houston.
...the state bird would be the middle finger.
...the chiggers, scorpions and spiders would still outnumber people.

 

[RonBoyd]

7 billion is a lot of people, but the world is also a very big place.

And quite willing to accomodate many more:

YouTube - A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

 

[Westernskies]

...the traffic in Muleshoe would be as bad as in Houston.

...not after all the fuedin', fightin', and shootin' started.

 

[Nodak]

If all 7 billion people lived in Texas each would have more than 1000 square feet of living room.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

And quite willing to accomodate many more:

YouTube - A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

Amazing. I always thought that people could be far more efficient with their use of space. Who really needs a 2,000+ square foot home?

 

[TromboneAl]

If all 7 Billion of those people lived in Texas

That argument has been debunked long ago, but it's still repeated.

Overpopulation: Let Us All Move to Texas | Socyberty

The Texas Myth

----------------

I wonder if the world population were 2 billion today. Would there be any disadvantages to that?

 

[NW-Bound]

That apartment set up is very interesting. But I have been thinking that I would not be sliding down the happiness scale if I were to sell my homes to live full-time in my little motor home of 8'x25', which is even smaller than that apartment.

What I am really curious is how they arrange for fresh water supply, sewage, and garbage collection in Hong Kong, or any densely populated places like that. That urban engineering feat is truly amazing.

 

[TromboneAl]

The apartment doesn't have a bathroom, so that solves the sewage issue.

 

[Nords]

...the traffic in Muleshoe would be as bad as in Houston.
...the state bird would be the middle finger.
...the chiggers, scorpions and spiders would still outnumber people.

In other words... California?

 

[RonBoyd]

The apartment doesn't have a bathroom, so that solves the sewage issue.

Yeah, like I used to tell the kids (and still tell DW) while on road trips, "Well, just hold it. We'll be there in half an hour... or so."

 

[Westernskies]

That argument has been debunked long ago, but it's still repeated.

Overpopulation: Let Us All Move to Texas | Socyberty

The Texas Myth

----------------

I wonder if the world population were 2 billion today. Would there be any disadvantages to that?

T-Al, how do you debunk the math?

7,000,000,000
268,581 sq miles = 26,063 people/square mile

2000 Census : NYC /Surrounding Boroughs = 26,517 people/square mile

26,517>26,063

 

[RonBoyd]

T-Al, how do you debunk the math?

7,000,000,000
268,581 sq miles = 26,063 people/square mile

2000 Census : NYC /Surrounding Boroughs = 26,517people/square mile

26,517>26,063

Get a few to sit on someone's lap.

 

[NW-Bound]

The video did show a soaking bathtub, so I think it has a toilet which was not shown.

The apartment doesn't have a bathroom, so that solves the sewage issue.

Yeah, like I used to tell the kids (and still tell DW) while on road trips, "Well, just hold it. We'll be there in half an hour... or so."

You have a motor home with a bathroom, for crying out loud. Just pull over and let your wife do her thing. Good grief!

 

[MooreBonds]

I wonder if the world population were 2 billion today. Would there be any disadvantages to that?

None whatsoever....as long as you weren't one of the 5 billion alive yesterday that suddenly had to go 'poof'.

 

[plex]

Home values would greatly decrease (in general), if the population decreased significantly. Some homes simply would not be needed. E.g. What has happened to Detroit on a larger scale.

 

[kyounge1956]

T-Al, how do you debunk the math?

7,000,000,000
268,581 sq miles = 26,063 people/square mile

2000 Census : NYC /Surrounding Boroughs = 26,517 people/square mile

26,517>26,063

You've left out the farms that produce NYC's food, the ranches that produce the wool they wear and the leather for their shoes, the forests that produce the wood to make the furniture they sit on and the paper the NY Times is printed on, the watershed their drinking water comes from, the mines and refineries that produce the steel to hold up the skyscrapers (without which you couldn't possibly pack so many people into such a small area), the power plants that generate their electricity or the factories that produce the manufactured products they use, and on and on and on. I don't think very much at all of what a New Yorker needs to survive is actually produced within the land area of the Five Boroughs.

This is all in the second link from T-Al's post, but I'll cut to the chase:

Using present technology, how much land would it take so that everyone on Earth could live like an American? Let's see... 24 acres, times 6*10^9, divided by 640 to get the area in square miles... 225 million square miles. What's the surface area of the Earth? 197,000,000 square miles. And only 57, 268,900 square miles of that is land at all, much less arable land.

 

[traineeinvestor]

.

What I am really curious is how they arrange for fresh water supply, sewage, and garbage collection in Hong Kong, or any densely populated places like that. That urban engineering feat is truly amazing.

The efficiency of the garbage collection, sewage and water supply here in HK is impressive, although I suspect the dense population actually helps by reducing the distances the garbage, sewage and water has to be transported. Like a lot of other places, the local landfills are rapidly running out of capacity and the debate over whether to open new landfills or build inconerators is pretty intense - everyone agrees that we need a solution soon, but every possible solution is going to be close to a residential area which the local residents (understandably) object to. Since the elected politicans are demanding that the government (i) address the issue and (ii) "listen to the people", I'm just hoping that we don't end up like Naples

 

[RonBoyd]

You have a motor home with a bathroom, for crying out loud. Just pull over and let your wife do her thing. Good grief!

Now, where's the fun in that?

 

[Westernskies]

You've left out the farms that produce NYC's food, the ranches that produce the wool they wear and the leather for their shoes, the forests that produce the wood to make the furniture they sit on and the paper the NY Times is printed on, the watershed their drinking water comes from, the mines and refineries that produce the steel to hold up the skyscrapers (without which you couldn't possibly pack so many people into such a small area), the power plants that generate their electricity or the factories that produce the manufactured products they use, and on and on and on. I don't think very much at all of what a New Yorker needs to survive is actually produced within the land area of the Five Boroughs.

This is all in the second link from T-Al's post, but I'll cut to the chase:

Ah, but you are reading too much into this, adding self-sustainability at an "American quality of life" within the borders to the equation. The math is based on pure population density, nothing more. The point is that you'd only need .5% of our current land mass to fit all the people; you'd still have the other 99.5% of the world available to clear-cut, strip-mine, and landfill