How many people can our earth's resource substain ?

Question

So where at at ? 6.4 billion ? Where does that number max ?

Answer 1

Depends on the quality of life, and quality of the environment.

Looking only at food, we already produce enough food to feed about double the worlds current population if we all ate an absolutely minimal diet of about 2400 calories a day, and were vegatarian. Most people eat more than the minimum needed, and much of it is not the most efficient such as meat.


Switching to higher yield plants at the expense of other concerns, and planting additional land may allow us to feed another 3-4 times the world's current population. Some countries such as Bangladesh have population densities of >2200 per square mile compared to the average of 73 in the US.

If the world had a similar standard of living to Bangladesh and similar priority on food production at the expense of everything else, the earth could maybe support up to 50 billion.

Such a standard of living would not be acceptable to nearly first world people, and nearly all wildlife would be extinct long before.

Answer 2

It depends on our technology. At the technological level of the prehistoric hunter gatherers, the Earth could not support any where near that 6+ billion that are living now. At today's level, with advanced agriculture, we can support more than we do now, but I am not sure exactly how many more. At some hypothetical future level of advanced technology, where chemical factories can make food without resorting to agriculture, the sky is the limit!

Answer 3

depends on consumption and quality of life desired.
at US resource usage about a 10th of current population levels.
ie we would need 10 planets to support the current population if we all lived the US lifestyle.

see environmental footprint.

Answer 4

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