Monday, March 06, 2006

Earth: We have a problem!

Being laid up for a few days had me reading all sorts of useless crap. Get this for instance:
The population of the planet has grown. The last time I checked- which admittedly was when I was in school, the population was just over 5.5 billion people. Frighteningly, (according to Wired) the Earth has reached an estimated population of 6.5 billion living breathing humans. This naturally presents a whole host of problems which are scary if you ask the question "How many people can the planet actually sustain?".

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't want to know about the 'tempo' effect of population expansion, its not due to peak for quite a while yet!
If we make it to 2075, we should 'enjoy' seeing a world population of 10 billion based on current prediction. Unhappily, demographers have a pretty good track record for predicting this sort of thing.

Unless, of course, the oceans rise and drown us all.

Lieutenant General Creedon said...

You're one of them "optimists" aren't you?

Anonymous said...

I'm renowned for my sunny outlook onlife!

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist"

Unknown said...

This is why the bird flu is such a threat. You see my theorey on this whole situation is thus....a few years ago the farmers killed off most of the foxes in Ireland leading to an explosion in rabbit populations (fox's main food source). Then a previously containable disease, mixamatosis, decimated the rabbit population. What I'm saying is nature has a way of thining out any population when there is too many. I for one cannot wait for the next great plague to sweep the earth. If I die then fuck it, but imagine if I live!!!! No more A*****nt, no more driving to work.......no more pants!!!!!

Lieutenant General Creedon said...

I'd prefer global war on a scale never witnessessed by mankind. But that's just me I guess.

Anonymous said...

Well yes, I suppose the nuclear winter that followed the war would also have an effect on the population.
Besides, Colonel, who do you envision fighting who?

Anonymous said...

The US versus the world no doubt.

Lieutenant General Creedon said...

Don't be daft. It's the US versus The Red Menace.