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    Last modified 03/04/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist

    An ecologist and an energy engineer will tell the economist that the carrying capacity of humans has its
    limits. Population cannot continue to expand indefinitely. The Earth can physically hold only so many
    people.

    In my opinion, their argument is irrelevant. I can take my magic wand and make the diameter of the Earth
    expand in such a way that the population density per square kilometer is constant. Every time a child is
    born the diameter the planet extends a millimeter or so. Everything else, including gravity, remains
    constant. To look at this in light most favorable to the ecologist, I will further hypothesize that the
    additional land is entirely fertile, that we have the right amount of sweet water to come with it, and that it
    has proportionally the necessary energetic resources. Will we now have avoided the Malthusian specter
    and put the ecologist at ease?

    The problem with the carrying capacity, again, is not the ratio of humans to land or to arable land or to
    food. The problem is that we are not having babies. We are not having babies, not because of education,
    or space, but because we live in urban mounds and can’t afford them. It is not the density of the entire
    Earth, but the qualitative distribution of that population which is the critical parameter. It is not that we are
    many. It is that we have the majority of our populations concentrated in the cities of the world. If we were
    to divide the population of Earth by the land area and distribute a plot of land to each couple or family, the
    population would likely increase exponentially as predicted by Malthus and Darwin. However, under an
    urban setting, increasing the amount of space or of food or and other resources will not change the
    current state of affairs. The more the population of the world is urbanized, the fewer children people will
    have.

    Russia is a case in point. Russia has roughly 10% of the land mass on Earth; it is almost twice as big as
    Canada, the next largest country. It is also energy rich. However, 75% of the population lives in cities
    today and, in just 20 years this number will rise to 80%. Russia is experiencing negative population
    growth and is expected to lose over 30 million people in the next 40 years. So we have here an ideal
    example to show that land and energy are not the constraining parameters. We have here the largest
    country on Earth which is incongruously depopulating. The reason is clear. People are flocking to the
    cities (or converting villages to towns). And the problem here is that urbanites don't have children. Russia
    is an empty country that is getting emptier by the day, partly because it has no immigration. It will continue
    to urbanize and depopulate until there are no more humans left on the planet. Russia will never again
    increase its population in what little time we have left. The vast, empty land that the Russian Government
    controls will serve no purpose other than to boast in heaven and in hell about how much space it took up
    on a map when humans ruled the Earth.
Catch 22:
The artificial economy
is limited by
population which is
limited by economics
We've conquered  most of the land on
Earth, tovarish! We have a great future
ahead of us! All we need to do now is
get women pregnant and fill the land!
We would've had more,
but I ran out of money.