Our Dilemma of Over Population

 

Ever since humans started an agrarian society some 12,000 years ago, there were only about less than 2,500 inhabitants on this Earth. As humans began to spread out across the world, his population began a slow increase in arithmetical progression until just after the industrial revolution in 1840 it went up to over a billion. Today in 2022 it is 7.9 billion – almost 8000,000,000. This is almost an exponential rise. It shall reach soon, and we shall use 8 billion for easier calculation.

 

But first, let's have a look at how much space Earth has to accommodate an increasing number of humans teeming on its surface. In order to do this, we need to look at how much land is suitable for living. Next, we need to know how much cross-sectional area a human body occupies, measured at its broadest around his upper body – around both his arms across the body.  

We also need to know the total surface area of his dwelling place, the size of his average house, and let's say also the car he has shared by 4 members of his family. These are just examples of how much space each person occupies along with his properties to help us visualize.

In real situations this varies significantly, and we shall explain that later.

 

Let's begin with some simple calculation

 

Total Surface of Earth:

 

Total surface area of Earth is about 509 600 000 square km (197 000 000 square miles). The oceans and seas occupy 71 % of the surface area leaving 29 % or 147,784,000 sq. km (57,100,000 sq. miles) as land.

1 square km = 0.386102 square mile)

Out of this, 33% are deserts and about 24% are mountains. Total unavailable land is, 84,236880 square km. This leaves us only 147784000 - 84,236880 = 63547120 square km. suitable for living. 

 

How Much Space Does A Human Body Occupy?

 

The circumference (C) of upper body around both arms is 45 inch = 1.143 meters

In order to find the largest area of body occupied by the body, we need to find the radius (R) first by changing the oval (egg-shaped) measurement of the upper body around our arms into a circle, and apply the formula:

 

C = 2 pi r

R = C/ 2pi

= 0.182 metre

Once the radius is known, the area (A) occupied by the body is = pi x r^2

= 0.104 sq. metre

(1 inch = 0.0254 metre)

(1,000,000 square metre = 1 sq. km)

(I foot = 0.3048 metre)

(1 square km = 0.386102 square mile)

 

Flood of Humans and Their Properties: 

 

The world population is currently approaching 8 billion (8,000 million) people.  This means 832 million sq. metres (832 sq. km) or 0.0013 % of habitable space has been occupied by humans squatting here, let alone all their “fantastic” bricks, cement, concrete, and steel structures parked here and there

An average house is 80 ' x 20 ' (149 square metres), and an average car has a length and width of 14.7 feet and 5.8 feet (7.9 sq. metre).

Normally, some houses are very crowded with 8 or 10 people staying, others just a single person, while others have no house to stay except in the streets. So, it is difficult to figure out what would be the density of people in each house? But let us average out 4 people staying in a house – father and mother with two children out to be 2000 million (2 billion) houses occupying 298,000 sq. km of space for houses, and 15800 sq. km for cars = 313800 sq. km, let alone other concrete structures like shops, shopping malls, office blocks, roads, bridges and other infrastructures. Houses and cars alone would have occupied 313800 / 63547120 x 100 = 0.5 % of land space suitable for living.

 

More Realistic: 

 

Of course, what we are discussing here is a hypothetical scenario just for academic interest. In reality, there are so many unpredictable variables as we do not have the actual data that can only be obtained by demography and population studies. Variables such as, not all will stay in a single house with his family of two children. Many families may have over ten or more people – father, mother, children, grandchildren, grandparents, uncles and aunties, nieces and nephews all crowded together under the same roof as nucleated families. Some wealthy individuals may selfishly have 10 or more houses and a fleet of 20 to 30 cars for each person in a family. Others may stay in apartments, flats and condominiums that can hold a few hundred residents under the same roof, others may be homeless, and many may have much larger houses with swimming pools, large sprawling gardens, estates and orchards, huge farms than just an example we give here of a standard size house of 149 square metre and an average car 7.9 square metre. Some houses are far apart from each other, others crowded in rows and rows

Then we also have many in poorer crowded countries like India where many have no car, and even if they have, a car is for 4 in a family. Whatever we have we all take up spaces, albeit a tiny bit individually, but significantly collectively.

Then again, population increase, or decrease depends on numerous factors such as affordability, educational levels, socio-economic factors, birth control programmes...religious beliefs, cultural systems...etc.

 

Many are born and die at various ages from numerous causes…accidents, disease, suicides, sudden death, natural disasters, etc. All these affect population growths, it is growing despite deaths with new generations replacing older ones.  

There is no way with all these variables, can we use straightforward mathematical calculations to derive data on how the population shall grow and how human activities here and there scattered everywhere on the surface of earth are going to take up space.

 

Just be aware we are only giving examples. The only way we can tell is to do actual field studies on anthropology, demography, human behaviour, migration patterns, sociology and such a like. Then we need to consider birth and death rates in various countries, some will have more, some less depending on the country such as China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, and Mexico having some of the highest numbers of people, while places like Vatican City, Nauru, Tuvalu, Palau, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Saint Kitts and Nevis having the lowest.

 

Still, despite these variables, we can predict what it will be like by just looking at the nett result of all these human activities from data collected from actual population studies where we can clearly see there is a rising trend in global population such as here:

 

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/world-population-prospects-2022-summary-

results#:~:text=The%20world's%20population%20is%20projected,and%2010.4%20billion%20in%202100.

 

Or here:

 

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

 

 Food and Nutrition in Deficit:

 

 Currently FAO and other studies shows we are really short of food and nutrition, the only ingredient we need to stay alive besides air and water:  

 

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/fao-statistical-yearbook-2021-world-food-and-agriculture#:~:text=Not%20only%20that%2C%20but%20agriculture,9.4%20billion%20tonnes%20in%202019.

 

https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/#:~:text=Global%20trends,and%20pastures)%20for%20grazing%20livestock.

 

A study claims that only about 38 percent of the land on Earth is used for food production. The rest is either unsuitable for cultivation because of soil, climate topography, or urban development, or its forest land.

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/not-enough-land-earth-support-diet-usda-recommends-guidelines-environment-ecosystem-health

 

Other studies show land usage, crop production and natural resource use:

 

https://www.fao.org/3/y4252e/y4252e06.htm

 

Other Adverse Effects: 

 

Although food security is our main priority, we also need to consider other ill-effects of overpopulation such as over consumption of natural and non-renewable resources such as oil and gas, other fossil fuels like coal all which are depleting inversely to our population growth.

Although food availability, its supply and food security is our main worry to feed an increasing population growth rate, destruction of the environment and ecosystem, let alone other ill-effects such as carbon dioxide emission, greenhouse effects, climate change, shortage of clean water and pollution into the environment. We can go on and on discussing all these issues into chapters after chapters, and these are real issues we may not be able to control.

 

What we are trying to drive home here is, it is not just an increase in human population, but a far, far more increase in all those unnecessary concrete non-biodegradable structures humans build here and there after he was born, when food is the only requirement, he needs to remain in existence. The human body does not occupy much space, but it is all those huge and massive concrete structures he constructs and park them here and there. All these occupy a lot of space meant essentially for growing food as our only crucial requirement. 

Our socio-economic demands for food, clothes, employment, health care, transport among other endless needs is going to be critically strained to breaking point with uncontrolled rising human population. Yet all our human activities are only limited on a “Pale Blue Dot” called Earth

lost among some 300 sextillion (3 x 10 ²³) other worlds according to a 2010 estimate, but probably 10 ²⁶ (100 trillion, trillion - 1 followed by 26 zeros) in my own estimate at a forum discussion in 2019. Yet our existence here is so fleeting and transient like a vapour appearing only for a short while before vanishing away.  

 

Furthermore, every human from birth till death buys and stores all kinds of unnecessary things in life, using them only once or twice before hanging them up somewhere in the house to collect dust or throwing them outside. In fact, 99.999 % of everything we buy we use only once, twice or just three times before hanging them up somewhere in the house or throwing them into the environment till we die.  All these unnecessary additions in life occupy space. Despite our awareness on these issues, the world population continues to rise alarmingly since the 1950’s The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975 – peaking at 2.1% between 1965 and 1970. It went up from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020.

 

If this trend continues, I think in order for us to be comfortable with each other in such a crowded situation, is to have at least 30 metres of space shared between each human. Even so, we need 225 square metres (2.25 x 10^ - 4 sq. km) for every person on Earth spaced out evenly. This means there shall be:  

 

63547120 square km / 2.25 x 10^ - 4 sq. km = 2.8 x 10^11 or 280 billion people teeming here on the surface of this limited Earth just to move around 30 metres apart, shared between two persons without any more land to grow any food? That’s just too bad and fatal for everyone without any food.

 

Thomas Malthus Essay: 

 

See this article on Thomas Malthus Essay, food supply and overpopulation, famine, plagues and pestilence, rise of humans, human growth like cancer cells, an evolutionary threat… etc:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=like+cancer+cells

 

Let us now visualize under extreme conditions if the population growth continues to explode unchecked from current data, at least a hypothetical scenario when a day should come when humans would only have standing rooms, shoulder to shoulder as the broadest area in a human body.

To answer this, a minimum of 25 sampling measurements from a child to a full-grown adult male with various sizes and body frames was taken, and the statistical mean (not average) cross-sectional area of a human body was calculated out to be 0.104 sq. metre (1.04 x 10^ -7 square km). This was already mentioned above in the beginning under "How Much Space Does A Human Body Occupy?". 

 

Extreme Population: 

 

Suppose we have a situation where every square cm of the habitable land is used up just to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with each other at the expense of even land for food needed to feed an explosive rise in population, then we will have:

63,547,120 square km of habitable standing room / 1.04 ^ -7 sq. km of a human body = 6 x !0^ 14, or 600 trillion people standing side-by-side with no space to move a single cm, let alone just to lie down. 

 

Supply and Demand: Population Stability:

 

 Of course, I don’t think we will ever reach that stage where we will not even have standing room, let alone any room to bury the dead. Even the dead needs space to be buried, unless they are cremated. The space needed by the dead is slightly less than the living. Still, new burial grounds need to be found and expanded after each one or two generations.  

 

The population growth may continue to rise infinitely till such a time when food supply, gas and oil are running out and can no longer support any further growth. In such an event the population may flatten off and stabilize where supply of food and natural resources just meet. But even such a scenario may not last long when all supplies of food, oil, gas, power and perhaps even clean water completely run out. In such a situation the population will dip sharply till the entire human civilization is wiped out.

 

This is a natural phenomenon we observe in microbiology where initially when a bacterium is inoculated in a nutrient culture plate just like when the first human was implanted on this earth, nothing happens. There is a lag phrase where there was no growth. Then after being incubated over a period of time, we see a sudden exponential phrase of logarithmic growth. During this bacterial growth phase, the number of new cells appearing is proportional to the population as we saw since the time agriculture and food supply began 10,000 years ago till we see an exponential rise in the current human population at nearly 8 billion.

 

We can expect this trend to continue for a number of decades more, before the population plateau off and stabilizes itself just like we observe bacterial growth in a confined space of a culture plate like on the limited space on earth.

 

See this article:

 

A Lesson in Bacteriology and Cancer Biology under:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=purpose+of+life

 

Then as food supply is being depleted with consumption of essential items and pollution increasing, this results in the accumulation of toxic wastes into the environment. It shall be death to all the remaining human population. Life would be extremely stressful and intolerable by then, and I believe many will self-destruct themselves with suicides bringing the population further down. This is what we also saw by observing the growth of bacteria cultured on a Petri dish as much as we are introduced here by a Creator and observe what we do here on Earth.

 

When Shall it Be? 

 

When shall that be, I am not sure as it also depends not just on depletion of food and famine, gas, oil, power, water supply just mentioned above, but also on wars, civil conflicts, and killing due to political, economic and social disorders because of depletion of human needs, disease and pandemic and other plagues and pestilence to cut us down like cancer cells creeping on the surface of this Earth such as revealed to us about periodical famine, war, plagues and pestilence to befall on Earth in this verse:  

“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”

(Revelation 6:8). Also here:

 

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7598223/

 

 

To summarize, we are the worst animals ever created on Earth. No other animal ever created do the same thing as we do here on Earth – building concrete engineering structures to park here and there, acquire properties everywhere, place our material investments to occupy every square km of this limited Earth from the way we breed, produce, consume, congest, destroy the environment, and use up all the natural resources.

 

Scientists and zoologists classify humans as animals. We belong to the Kingdom of Animalia as a  multicellular organisms with  cells with a nucleus, with cell membranes, in the Phylum as a Chordata, an animal  with a spinal cord, in the Class Mammalia, a warm-blooded chordates that bear live young; females have mammary glands that secrete milk to nourish young in the Order as Primates, and as a mammal with collar bone; eyes face forward; grasping hands with fingers; two types of teeth (incisors and molars) in the Family – Hominidae, and as Primates with upright posture, large brain, stereoscopic vision, flat face, different use of hands and feet. In other words, we are not angels, gods or spiritual beings, but just like all other animals with head, body and limbs 

 

But we are entirely different from all other animals because none of the other animals fight to destroy themselves and the environment unnecessarily, and yet they fly and creep everywhere and are fed free of charge without needing to pay for food or anything else. Only humans build non-biodegradable concrete structures everywhere on land meant for agriculture and food production as our only requirements. Birds use natural biodegradable twigs, leaves and small branches to build their houses and nests, so do beavers use the same to build dams across streams.

 

(Luke 12:27-40, Matthew 6:26-34)

 

We are truly unique