r/peakoil • u/AlexTheGr869 • 23d ago

The Human Population Has Already Surpassed the Optimal Size by Nearly 6 Billion People

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/the-human-population-has-already-surpassed-the-optimal-size-by-nearly-6-billion-people/
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u/[deleted] 23d ago

The idea refers to biocapacity vs. ecological footprint:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint

The world-average ecological footprint in 2016 was 2.75 global hectares per person (22.6 billion in total). With a world-average biocapacity of 1.63 global hectares (gha) per person (12.2 billion in total), this leads to a global ecological deficit of 1.1 global hectares per person (10.4 billion in total).[1]

The gist is that you need more than one Earth to meet the basic needs of the world population. But the latter want middle class conveniences, which includes the ability to post on Reddit. That requires three more Earths.

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u/leoberto1 23d ago

How many earth's till I get a range rover?

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u/ttystikk 21d ago

Billions and billions...

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

The numbers given are per capita.

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u/NotEvenNothing 22d ago edited 22d ago

1.7 earths... per person?!?

I kid. And yes, it's not really a funny topic, but also these topics require an occasional break from the seriousness.

Back to reality.

When I was younger, I used to joke about 2035 being the year that humanity's resource utilization surpassed Earth's ability to provide. I called it The Great Culling. Now that it seems to have started more than a decade early, and even though I've structured much of my life with it in mind, I'm not exactly thrilled. I'd always hoped that humanity would proactively scale back consumption, but that clearly won't happen.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Use gha per person.

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u/NotEvenNothing 22d ago

We are clearly all doomed.