Human World Population
Between
10,000 BC and 2,000 AD
Parallels
(Overshooting the Carrying Capacity):
1910 - Reindeer population on St. Matthew
Island, Alaska: 1910:
4 male, 22 female deer 1930:
250 deer 1940:
2,000 deer 1950:
8 deer left
14th century - Bubonic Plague: More than 125 million people die in Europe
during a few decades
Note: Exponential Growth (the old parable with the grains of corn doubling
on the chess board is very describing for this mathematical term) is
very impressive, but can never continue. At one point sooner or later
it will be stopped one way or another. One way of reaching the limits
of exponential growth in population is by overshooting the carrying
capacity. The carrying capacity is defined as the maximum number of
individuals that can be supported by the biotope in which they exist.
Unfortunately we can never know for sure what the carrying capacity
is for Earth when it comes to human beings (looking at what we have
managed to do to the environment the last century one could easily come
to the conclusion that weĠve already overshot the carrying capacity
for our system). In the same way, we can never know when or how the
exponential growth will be stopped, but as Carl Sagan says, if we do
not stop it ourselves it will be stopped for us, most likely in a much
less desirable fashion.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
