One of the more pervasive stupid myths in our culture is that the world is overpopulated. To hear people speak, you’d think we were running out of open space and soon the planet will look like Coruscant in the Star Wars movies: one giant worldwide city. This is, of course, false.
Now I could cite all kinds of studies about how population in developing nations is actually declining and the graying of the world and so on. But how a much simpler exercise. What if I told you that the entire population of the world could fit into the state of Texas with lots of room to spare? Don’t believe me? Let’s do the math.
The current land area of Texas is 261,914 square miles; not including water area of 6,687 square miles. We won’t make people live on Lake Worth. Converting that into square footage gives us 7,301,743,257,600 square feet. That’s more than 7.3 trillion square feet.
Now we need the total population of the planet at this time. A quick search of Google helpfully tells very quickly that it is currently 6,446,131,400.
Some quick division later and we determine that if we moved every person on the planet to the state of Texas, they would have 1,132 square feet of living space. Each.
And that’s assuming we didn’t build up, that they were all single story homes. Build five-story apartment buildings and living space goes up to 5,660 square feet. Each. All in the state of Texas. With the entirety of the rest of the planet empty of human habitation.
Are you still going to tell me the planet’s overpopulated?
Of course, once you’ve answered that challenge, the next thing they’ll throw at you is that it’s not the land area we’re overpopulating, but the resources we’re using. But then that’s another stupid myth that needs to be deflated and I’ll leave that for another time.
LOL Kelly, that was so creative! I’ll be singing it all day now
Dom, you’re right on - this myth spread into intellectual circles back in the beginning of the 19th century, with the economics of Thomas Malthus - whose misery index is still cited today (a geometric population growth vs. only an arithmetic means of feeding that resultant demand). Even though the USA alone grows enough grain to feed the entire earth, such myths perpetuate as convenient political tools for arguments such as the need for abortion and laws limiting the number a family’s children (China these past several decades). It’s not that the population is unmanageable, rather that economic opportunities don’t exist for hundreds of millions of poor due to political corruption and human selfishness.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 02:11 AM
Dom
You’ve calculated personal elbow room OK, but what about everything that’s required for life on this planet as we now now it.
To name just a few things, we need space for our ecosystem to survive, to grow food, generate energy, etc and enjoy things like mountains, caves, different cultures.
You’ve also made the assumption that all of Texas is perfectly habitable, and equally for everyone.
You couldn’t really fit the world as we know it inside Texas, giving each individual a 345 x 345 sq metre cell. Then we really would be living on Coruscant.
While I don’t disagree with your premise that the world isn’t overpopulated yet, I think you’re oversimplifying the issue and not treating it seriously.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 02:36 AM
That’s the point, Dale. Earth does not equal Texas. There’s no problem.
Malthusian liberals always fail to factor in the enormous gains in agricultural efficiency.
China, with its insidious abortion policy, now has a new problem. Chinese parents are aborting girls at astonishingly high rates. This is setting up China for complete population implosion. There’s no evidence that non-Chinese females will move there with Chinese husbands, in Asia, China is regarded as a crude, filthy hell-hole.
If liberals are so concerned about over-population then the best course of action is for them not to breed.
The second best course of action, of course, is to deport American & European liberals to China, starting immediately.
Interesting analysis, Dom. I look forward to part 2, because Tom2 summed it up pretty succinctly - the problem is human selfishness. As he says, the US grows enough grain to feed the world, but we don’t even try. (Not a surprise with political leaders who say it is “the American way” and our right to use as many natural resources as we want to.)
This is not a “liberal” vs. “conservative” issue. Jesus said, “feed my sheep.” How can we sit silently by when huge sections of the world population are starving? It goes beyong sending grain which admittedly can sit in warehouses and rot before it is distributed, or sending money which admittedly can be misused by corrupt regimes. These programs should not be abandoned, but the world has to figure out a way to act together to prevent things like the famine in Niger. It was known years ago that crops were failing. Had something been done then, millions wouldn’t be starving, and the cost would have been a fraction of what it will cost now (both in dollars and lives).
But I guess it isn’t a good news story until it’s a crisis. And only then until a new one takes its place.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 08:08 AM
Thomas. You’ve missed the point. Dom was really saying that Humans + Texas != Overpopulation, and that this could be proved mathematically.
The ‘mathematical Texas argument’ is a gross oversimplification of life on Earth. Until Dom does the actual maths, and correctly calculates the land mass per person required to sustain life as we’ve come to expect it on this planet then he can’t possibly discount a “myth”.
Your agricultural efficiency and Chinese abortion policy issues have nothing to do with the mathematics that Dom proposed, or anything to do with my reply.
I find your personal attacks on liberals, suggesting they ‘not breed’ and be deported, to be over the top. This is the same sort of hate-filled language I imagine has been used groups throughout history.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 08:33 AM
Often those—who are materially well of and comfortable—state we are facing an ‘overpopulation’ crisis point to others as the problem. And it is not deliberate for most concerned, but there a racial element to the debate.
There was a UN report issued 7-8 years ago reporting that the planet can feed a far greater population than there is today, but there are a number of logistical, environmental and other issues to be addressed.
Concerning commodity resources, we have barely scratched the earth’s surface, though huge questions remain on how we procede.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 09:05 AM
You think math is going to phase these people? If they can convince themselves that a “foetus” is not a human being, then they can convince themselves that 2+2=5. This argument *might* have worked with their “reason uber alles” Enlightenment forefathers, but now that reason has joined Faith on the scrapheap of history, mankind operates on emotion alone, and every one of modern man’s choices is based on what will give him instant gratification. How can we even begin to converse with such people, much less fight them?
I have done a lot of math over the years. I think Dom’s numbers are very instructive.
The land mass per necessary per person? That is a dynamic number. If there are more people demanding more food, farmers will grow more food per person, if they make money. Doesn’t matter if the world population is stuffed into Texas or Tennessee. It will happen, if someone pays for it.
I think you are too harsh with TC. One of biggest nuisances with “liberals” is that they are always proscribing behavior for others, and not themselves. TC makes that point, in a dramatic but not hateful fashion.
I did the same calculation myself when I heard this statistic and came up with 1140sqf. I also compared that to what I I could find on Tokyo, whose density is one person per 802sqf.
I think Dale missed the point that if the entire population lived in TX, the rest of the world was available for resources, either energy, food, recreation, etc. If you assume no or little improvement in managing resources, you certainly may exceed the resources. But, that’s what started us on this path we are on now. We’ve done a decent job of improving food production, etc. to keep ahead.
People talk about starving in Ethiopia, but I just saw someone down 3 Big Macs at a local McDondalds. Did the Ethipoians really starve for lack of food in the world? For that matter, there are people starving in our own country. Is that also for lack of food?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 10:52 AM
Adrian raises another point on this issue. A visit to any restaurant (fast food or first class) or any school cafeteria in this country reveals we throw out an enormous amount of food each and every day.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 11:21 AM
Here’s a relatively recent article I wrote on the matter of “overpopulation”:
one other observation…considering that nations combined spend $1 trillion plus on weapons in 2004, and Americans spend $30 billion each for pet care and make up, it is hard to argue we do not have enough resources to feed the world’s population.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/18/05 at 09:56 AM
>>Americans spend $30 billion each for pet care and make up
Hm, I don’t spend any money on either, much less $30 billion—somebody out there must be spending $60B!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 09:11 AM
each year!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 10:20 AM
DANG, somebody’s spending $60B *each year* on pets and makeup? We’re talkin’ Mimi Bobeck runs a shelter for homeless cats here!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 01:46 PM
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Stupid myths: overpopulation
One of the more pervasive stupid myths in our culture is that the world is overpopulated. To hear people speak, you’d think we were running out of open space and soon the planet will look like Coruscant in the Star Wars movies: one giant worldwide city. This is, of course, false.
Now I could cite all kinds of studies about how population in developing nations is actually declining and the graying of the world and so on. But how a much simpler exercise. What if I told you that the entire population of the world could fit into the state of Texas with lots of room to spare? Don’t believe me? Let’s do the math.
The current land area of Texas is 261,914 square miles; not including water area of 6,687 square miles. We won’t make people live on Lake Worth. Converting that into square footage gives us 7,301,743,257,600 square feet. That’s more than 7.3 trillion square feet.
Now we need the total population of the planet at this time. A quick search of Google helpfully tells very quickly that it is currently 6,446,131,400.
Some quick division later and we determine that if we moved every person on the planet to the state of Texas, they would have 1,132 square feet of living space. Each.
And that’s assuming we didn’t build up, that they were all single story homes. Build five-story apartment buildings and living space goes up to 5,660 square feet. Each. All in the state of Texas. With the entirety of the rest of the planet empty of human habitation.
Are you still going to tell me the planet’s overpopulated?
Of course, once you’ve answered that challenge, the next thing they’ll throw at you is that it’s not the land area we’re overpopulating, but the resources we’re using. But then that’s another stupid myth that needs to be deflated and I’ll leave that for another time.
COMMENTS
What better fate,
To populate…
(clap clap clap clap)
Deep in the heart of Texas?
Get in the groove,
It’s time to move…
(clap clap clap clap)
Deep in the heart of Texas!
Screw doom and gloom,
There’s always room…
(clap clap clap clap)
Deep in the heart of Texas!
No need to toil,
(there’s so much oil…)
(clap clap clap clap)
Deep in the heart of Texas!
The numbers show,
There’s room to grow…
(clap clap clap clap)
Deep in the heart of Texas!
With much aplomb,
I thank you, Dom,
(clap clap clap clap)
Here in the heart of…Boston.
P.S. And I wouldn’t mind that one thousand plus square feet, either!
Posted by Kelly Clark on 10/16/05 at 06:40 PM
LOL Kelly, that was so creative! I’ll be singing it all day now
Dom, you’re right on - this myth spread into intellectual circles back in the beginning of the 19th century, with the economics of Thomas Malthus - whose misery index is still cited today (a geometric population growth vs. only an arithmetic means of feeding that resultant demand). Even though the USA alone grows enough grain to feed the entire earth, such myths perpetuate as convenient political tools for arguments such as the need for abortion and laws limiting the number a family’s children (China these past several decades). It’s not that the population is unmanageable, rather that economic opportunities don’t exist for hundreds of millions of poor due to political corruption and human selfishness.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 02:11 AM
Dom
You’ve calculated personal elbow room OK, but what about everything that’s required for life on this planet as we now now it.
To name just a few things, we need space for our ecosystem to survive, to grow food, generate energy, etc and enjoy things like mountains, caves, different cultures.
You’ve also made the assumption that all of Texas is perfectly habitable, and equally for everyone.
You couldn’t really fit the world as we know it inside Texas, giving each individual a 345 x 345 sq metre cell. Then we really would be living on Coruscant.
While I don’t disagree with your premise that the world isn’t overpopulated yet, I think you’re oversimplifying the issue and not treating it seriously.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 02:36 AM
That’s the point, Dale. Earth does not equal Texas. There’s no problem.
Malthusian liberals always fail to factor in the enormous gains in agricultural efficiency.
China, with its insidious abortion policy, now has a new problem. Chinese parents are aborting girls at astonishingly high rates. This is setting up China for complete population implosion. There’s no evidence that non-Chinese females will move there with Chinese husbands, in Asia, China is regarded as a crude, filthy hell-hole.
If liberals are so concerned about over-population then the best course of action is for them not to breed.
The second best course of action, of course, is to deport American & European liberals to China, starting immediately.
Posted by ThomasCoolberth on 10/17/05 at 07:45 AM
Interesting analysis, Dom. I look forward to part 2, because Tom2 summed it up pretty succinctly - the problem is human selfishness. As he says, the US grows enough grain to feed the world, but we don’t even try. (Not a surprise with political leaders who say it is “the American way” and our right to use as many natural resources as we want to.)
This is not a “liberal” vs. “conservative” issue. Jesus said, “feed my sheep.” How can we sit silently by when huge sections of the world population are starving? It goes beyong sending grain which admittedly can sit in warehouses and rot before it is distributed, or sending money which admittedly can be misused by corrupt regimes. These programs should not be abandoned, but the world has to figure out a way to act together to prevent things like the famine in Niger. It was known years ago that crops were failing. Had something been done then, millions wouldn’t be starving, and the cost would have been a fraction of what it will cost now (both in dollars and lives).
But I guess it isn’t a good news story until it’s a crisis. And only then until a new one takes its place.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 08:08 AM
Thomas. You’ve missed the point. Dom was really saying that Humans + Texas != Overpopulation, and that this could be proved mathematically.
The ‘mathematical Texas argument’ is a gross oversimplification of life on Earth. Until Dom does the actual maths, and correctly calculates the land mass per person required to sustain life as we’ve come to expect it on this planet then he can’t possibly discount a “myth”.
Your agricultural efficiency and Chinese abortion policy issues have nothing to do with the mathematics that Dom proposed, or anything to do with my reply.
I find your personal attacks on liberals, suggesting they ‘not breed’ and be deported, to be over the top. This is the same sort of hate-filled language I imagine has been used groups throughout history.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 08:33 AM
Often those—who are materially well of and comfortable—state we are facing an ‘overpopulation’ crisis point to others as the problem. And it is not deliberate for most concerned, but there a racial element to the debate.
There was a UN report issued 7-8 years ago reporting that the planet can feed a far greater population than there is today, but there are a number of logistical, environmental and other issues to be addressed.
Concerning commodity resources, we have barely scratched the earth’s surface, though huge questions remain on how we procede.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 09:05 AM
You think math is going to phase these people? If they can convince themselves that a “foetus” is not a human being, then they can convince themselves that 2+2=5. This argument *might* have worked with their “reason uber alles” Enlightenment forefathers, but now that reason has joined Faith on the scrapheap of history, mankind operates on emotion alone, and every one of modern man’s choices is based on what will give him instant gratification. How can we even begin to converse with such people, much less fight them?
Posted by GFvonB on 10/17/05 at 09:10 AM
Dale,
I have done a lot of math over the years. I think Dom’s numbers are very instructive.
The land mass per necessary per person? That is a dynamic number. If there are more people demanding more food, farmers will grow more food per person, if they make money. Doesn’t matter if the world population is stuffed into Texas or Tennessee. It will happen, if someone pays for it.
I think you are too harsh with TC. One of biggest nuisances with “liberals” is that they are always proscribing behavior for others, and not themselves. TC makes that point, in a dramatic but not hateful fashion.
JBP
Posted by John Powers on 10/17/05 at 09:10 AM
I did the same calculation myself when I heard this statistic and came up with 1140sqf. I also compared that to what I I could find on Tokyo, whose density is one person per 802sqf.
I think Dale missed the point that if the entire population lived in TX, the rest of the world was available for resources, either energy, food, recreation, etc. If you assume no or little improvement in managing resources, you certainly may exceed the resources. But, that’s what started us on this path we are on now. We’ve done a decent job of improving food production, etc. to keep ahead.
People talk about starving in Ethiopia, but I just saw someone down 3 Big Macs at a local McDondalds. Did the Ethipoians really starve for lack of food in the world? For that matter, there are people starving in our own country. Is that also for lack of food?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 10:52 AM
Adrian raises another point on this issue. A visit to any restaurant (fast food or first class) or any school cafeteria in this country reveals we throw out an enormous amount of food each and every day.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/17/05 at 11:21 AM
Here’s a relatively recent article I wrote on the matter of “overpopulation”:
http://www.lifenews.com/nat1361.html
Posted by Matt C. Abbott on 10/17/05 at 12:37 PM
one other observation…considering that nations combined spend $1 trillion plus on weapons in 2004, and Americans spend $30 billion each for pet care and make up, it is hard to argue we do not have enough resources to feed the world’s population.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/18/05 at 09:56 AM
>>Americans spend $30 billion each for pet care and make up
Hm, I don’t spend any money on either, much less $30 billion—somebody out there must be spending $60B!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 09:11 AM
each year!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 10:20 AM
DANG, somebody’s spending $60B *each year* on pets and makeup? We’re talkin’ Mimi Bobeck runs a shelter for homeless cats here!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/19/05 at 01:46 PM
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.