There are too many Humans

There are too many Humans

Today, I heard another news story of Ontario agricultural lands being removed from production to make room for more houses. The rate was 132 hectares per day (the report said one farm per day, but for those of us in older settled areas, it is closer to 3 100 acre farms/lots per day).

Why are we still growing houses not food.

Too many of us. Probably

Not that long ago, I listened to a radio program about sand. Apparently commercially available sand is getting in very short supply. Sand is an integral parr of one of the most common construction materials – Concrete (the stuff too many “intellectuals” call by one of its smaller ingredients – cement). The article said by a not too future date, 90% of the population (of the “south”/developing world) would be housed in cities. We need sand to build those cities.

Maybe we should look not at not enough sand but too many people.

In my lifetime, the world’s population has tripled (a annual growth rate of about 1.8%).

We are seeing local wars for territory; local food shortages, global changes in climate. Trying to accommodate upwards of 8 billion people in a finite habitat seems to be becoming more and more difficult.

Think of this. Many “western” countries are hoping to reduce green house gasses (GHG) to 50% of the 2005 amounts by 2030. World population has grown 19% since 2005 and is expected to grow another 9.5%. A 50% reduction imposed on a 28.5% larger population is approaching a 67% reduction in GHG (by everyone).

Is it possible. Maybe, but I’m skeptical. After the short lived Covid slowdown, there does not seem to be a will to continue “not doing that”. If population (not just population growth) is not reduced, we are in trouble. If growth is reduced by half, by the time my grandchildren are my age, there will still be over 15 billion people (twice today’s population) on the planet.

There is an experiment where a closed vial of nutrients has a dividing cell introduced. The experiment is designed so that the cell(s) divide every minute and the nutrients will last exactly one hour. Some questions

when is half the nutrient supply left? —- One minute before the end.
How much nutrient is left 5 minutes before the end?
— There will still be over 97% of the nutrients left.

Continued growth in a finite system is not possible

The Plaidneck