Pop. Principles

Optimum population of humans: Ideally, how many people can, or should, the Earth support?

April 11, 2023 April 10, 2023

It can seem like the human population can grow forever, but analysis makes it clear growth must stop eventually. The question becomes at what level should it stop?

Do we go for the maximum possible people before everything collapses, even if average living standards could be far better with a smaller population? Is it like a chicken farm in an egg farm, where having less chickens is seen as preferable if it means chickens get better living conditions? What population strikes the right balance for humans?

Why Population growth even before the explosion?

August 21, 2022 August 15, 2022

Throughout history, although no other species on Earth has experienced such long term overall population growth, even before the recent population explosion, the human population kept slowly growing.

Yes, we recently had an unprecedented population explosion, driven by is hidden by by the near elimination of previously tragic infant mortality, but against the background of long term growth, many of us never didn’t even realise their was an explosion.

But what drove population growth even before the explosion? What will now happen as the explosion ends?

the surprises hiding in life expectancy numbers.

May 17, 2022 May 20, 2022

The main surprise is that life expectancy reveals very little about how long people typically live. From the 1500s till around 1800, life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between 30 and 40 years of age, and it was only as recent as the 20th century, that life expectancy rose from 49.2 to 80.3 years. Yet famous historical figures from 2,000 years ago, typically lived to around 70 or longer.

Optimum Population Responses: nature’s birth control.

September 22, 2021 July 28, 2022

Human birth rates are falling at a rate that has some fearing population collapse, but could this a natural biological repose to threats of overpopulation, rather than any cause for alarm?

This raises the question as to what controls population in other species and, why is overpopulation rare? Would all species not population controlled by predators just multiply like bacteria in petri until dish resources are all consumed, or does nature, and even potentially humans, have other mechanisms to constrain population at a more optimum level? In practice, resource constraint and predation alone as population control would for many species would result in repeated huge population swings, so logically, there must be more.

Analysing population mechanisms in other species may provide some interesting insights and possible answers to at least a large part of what is happing with birth-rates that will determine whether our future is population is one of: continued growth, collapse, or stability, on a planet where population of all life is not growing.

Population on a Finite World: No Vacancies.

July 21, 2021 April 1, 2022

Every niche on Earth where life is possible, is filled by species to maximum capacity. Except for brief periods following Earth changing events, or other change of circumstances, there have been no ‘vacant’ liveable environments on Earth for over 4 billion years. Any increase in population of one species, requires a reduction in population of other species, in a process Darwin declared “survival of the fittest”.