Is it reasonable to think that earth can not sustain a human population of 9
billion and maintain other forms of life?
Using Google scholar and Wikipedia as databases I researched the following
terms:
Applied sustainability, Biocapacity, Carrying capacity of the earth.
Convergence, Ecological footprint, Limits to growth, Overconsumption,
Population growth, Sustainable Development, Sustainability metrics. I
limited the search to items published after 2005. The takeaways below the orange cheese doodle.
The takeaways:
China's food production is forecast to decline by 37% by the last half of
the 21st century, placing a strain on the entire carrying capacity of the
world, as China's population could expand to about 1.5 billion people by the
year 2050.
Economy, E., China vs. Earth, The Nation, May 7, 2007 issue
This reduction in China's agricultural capability, and the planet’s, is
largely due to the world water crisis including mining groundwater beyond
sustainable yield, ongoing in China since the mid-20th century.
Nielsen, R., The Little Green Handbook,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picador Picador, (2006)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0312425813 ISBN
0-312-42581-3 Ongoing in the USA roughly since the 1930s.
Also
see
According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more water
supplies aren’t found by 2020, the region will face a shortfall nearly as
great as the amount consumed today.
The United Nations' FAO states that by 2025, 1.9 billion people will be
living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds
of the world population could be under stress conditions. See FAO Hot
issues: Water scarcity.
The World Bank adds that climate change could profoundly alter future
patterns of both water availability and use, thereby increasing levels of
water stress and insecurity, both at the global scale and in sectors that
depend on water. Source:
The World Bank, 2009 "Water and Climate Change: Understanding the Risks and
Making Climate-Smart Investment Decisions". pp. 21–24. Retrieved
2011-10-24.
The average world citizen has an eco-footprint of about 2.7 global average
hectares while there are only 2.1 global average hectares of bioproductive
land and water per capita on earth. This means that humanity has already
overshot global biocapacity by 30% and now lives unsustainabily by depleting
stocks of "natural capital".
Source: Rees, William, "The Human Nature of Unsustainability", in Heinberg,
Richard and Leich,Daniel, The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century
Sustainability Crisis, Watershed Media, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9709500-6-2
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, has said: "It would take 1.5
Earths to sustain our present level of consumption. Environmentally, the
world is in an overshoot mode."
Brown, L. R. (2011). World on the Edge. Earth Policy Institute. Norton. pp.
7. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number ISBN
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/987-0-393-08029-2
987-0-393-08029-2.
Wackernagel’s Ecological Footprint - A ">study by Mathis Wackernagel has shown
that the global ecological footprint was in overshoot by .4 global hectares
per person, or roughly 23%. Wackernagel, Mathis; Russ, Thomas (ed.) (2008).
In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington,
D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and
the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth January 23,
2007; Last revised November 18, 2008;
Sustainability instead
"Daly Rules" approach
University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor and former Chief
Economist for the World Bank Herman E. Daly (working from theory initially
developed by Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and laid out in
his 1971 opus "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process") suggests the
following three operational rules defining the condition of ecological
(thermodynamic) sustainability:
Renewable resources such as fish, soil, and groundwater must be used no
faster than the rate at which they regenerate.
Nonrenewable resources such as minerals and fossil fuels must be used no
faster than renewable substitutes for them can be put into place.
Pollution and wastes must be emitted no faster than natural systems can
absorb them, recycle them, or render them harmless.
This is a terrible fast parse of a huge amount of information. I wish I
could absorb it all and make is sensible.
I don't believe that we can technology our way to more water, but I'd love
to be wrong.