The director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, said that if global temperatures rose nine degrees Fahrenheit due to the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences, the carrying capacity of the earth could drop to one billion people, meaning a loss of more than five billion human beings. According to estimates, a nine degree increase in temperature is below the maximum possible increase envisioned in various global warming scenarios.
Increasing Temperatures Could Mean Billions of Fewer Humans
By Matt Rosenberg, About.com GuideMarch 17, 2009
Explore Geography
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Less than two thousand years ago the population of the planet had never been over 0.3 billion. Two thousand years is only a tiny period of Homo sapiens history and not even a tick of the geological clock. It wasn’t that humans didn’t know how to breed until recently, it’s that until recently, given all the resources of the earth we couldn’t feed and keep alive more than 0.3 billion of us at a time.
The population ratios over a brief period are quite astounding. I have seen estimates that in the area now of the 48 states that the native population pre-Columbus was about 2 million (0.002 billion). Today we are about 300 million in this area, including more Amerindians than 500 years ago. And we are fat.
Since we have had lots of energy to use, nearly all the increase from fossil fuels, world population has grown exponentially. To put this in perspective, currently world population is growing at nearly 0.1 billion per year, or about 50 times the number of all the Indians at the time of Columbus.
Man-caused global warming or not, the carrying capacity of the earth today is far less than the present population, approaching 7 billion. In any event the population must decrease drastically.
There is no taboo stronger than against addressing the need to decrease world population. Come on people, when God told us to multiply we were on the endangered species list. We followed orders and multiplied about 2300% since then. A revision of the Bible is far past due.
Very nice. Straight forward- well put. You have my full support.
Kavitha, you have made my day – no, make that my week. Thank you.