Human population numbers questioned

[skjl47]

The other is the biological food pyramid as found in biology and ecology texts. Not the food pyramid of human nutrition recently turned upside down. The idea is if you skip feeding livestock you then can feed many more people. I will again use beef cattle. To raise beef cattle to market size it is estimated to take near ten pounds of feed for each pound of meat +bone + blood + whatever is harvested. So, if you feed the same grains to people, you can support something like ten times more people than with beef foods. (By the way my beef & beans is ready to eat.) I have to agree with this particular idea partially but not overall.

Hello; The end. finally.

 

[jjohnwm]

I don't doubt that more people can be "fed" if we treat them as livestock...rather than feeding them  on livestock which must in turn be fed on crops. We could probably make some entirely synthetic substitute food out of recycled cardboard or refined sewage or who-knows-what, allowing even greater efficiency. But at risk of sounding like an uncaring boor...so what?

I won't be eating the upcoming version of Soylent Green regardless of what...or who...it's made from.

 

[skjl47]

I don't doubt that more people can be "fed" if we treat them as livestock...rather than feeding them  on livestock which must in turn be fed on crops. We could probably make some entirely synthetic substitute food out of recycled cardboard or refined sewage or who-knows-what, allowing even greater efficiency. But at risk of sounding like an uncaring boor...so what?

I won't be eating the upcoming version of Soylent Green regardless of what...or who...it's made from.

Hello; I tend to agree that there are lengths not worth going to. Afraid I got stuck in a rut decades ago. Could be once I saw over population as the issue so long ago I became like the proverbial hammer & nail. If you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. To me back in 1975 it seemed the best way to avoid over stressing the environment beyond tipping points was to stabilize the numbers.
I do not know what lengths humans as a whole will go to survive.

 

[skjl47]

As a consequence, I am on the side of the environmentalists here - or rather, they're on my side. I want a planet that has at least some wildlife in it, states and corporations want the useful planet, so I'm happy with those who push back against the latter, even if they're loud and annoying at times.

Hello; Well written post. Easy to follow and I get the point. I like the idea of nature preserved just to have it around.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; Back 50 + years ago when I was charging at my overpopulation windmill there was more than just population on the table. ZPG (zero population growth) was an idea to stabilize the numbers. There were reasons to want such stabilization. That was the time of bad smog and things such as that river in Ohio catching fire. Serious environmental problems existed and more were predicted to come.

Among the predictions was problems with tap water. What would we do when our rivers, lakes and reservoirs produced poor quality tap water? The answer of course was water bottled in throwaway plastic. An ironic catch 22 in more ways than one. Also, one with a false assumption. The catch 22 being increased plastic pollution which is now the boogie-man of microplastics. The false assumption is bottled water is sourced from pure spring water.
Of course some is sourced from clean springs. There is a brand bottled in Middlesboro KY which gets the water from a limestone spring which comes from underground and taken from a spring in Cumberland Gap TN. I see the 18-wheeler tank truck taking loads thru the tunnel often in a big stainless tank. Called Cumberland Gap Mountain Water. I have some. I do not often drink it. In the summer I keep a few bottles frozen and put one in my mail box on the Hwy for the mail carrier to have when it gets above 90 degrees F.

It is my understanding most bottled water is indeed tap water which is filtered. I think in my area huge amounts is bottled near Atlanta GA.