Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

[DoYouKubuntu]

Huh?, you're asking. Well, I forced myself to watch the "Duggars: All you wanted to know" episode of "19 Kids and Counting." I actually thought I might hear something that would make my opinion of that...strange family go up a little. Wrong!

One of the questions they were asked had to do with having so many kids considering the overpopulation problem. According to them, overpopulation is a myth. Not only that, but--and this came straight from Jim Bob's mouth: "The whole world population could fit into the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida." Okay.

I looked up the size of Jacksonville and it's 841 square miles. I don't know about you, but I think it might be a tad bit cramped if all SEVEN BILLION people on earth took up residence in Jacksonville.

[Snowhog]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Well, of course, it's an academic exercise.

The average human being occupies 2 square feet of ground 'space'.
There are 27,878,400 square feet per mile.
Jacksonville, Florida occupies 841 square miles.

(841 x 27,878,400)/4 = 5,861,433,600 '2 square foot' units, is not enough to contain the entire, current, human population of the Earth.

It would take a U.S. municipality occupying more than 1004.5 square miles to contain the entire world population. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, only one municipality - Anchorage, Alaska, at 1,697.3 square miles - is large enough.

Planet Earth:
Area of land: 148,326,000 km2 (57,268,900 square miles)
(57,268,900 x 27,878,400)/4 = 399,141,325,440,000 '2 square foot' units, enough (on paper) to contain 399 trillion, 141 billion, 325 million, 440 thousand average human beings.

Talk about global warming!

[ardvark71]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Well, I forced myself to watch the "Duggars: All you wanted to know" episode of "19 Kids and Counting." I actually thought I might hear something that would make my opinion of that...strange family go up a little. Wrong!

Hi...

With all due respect, the Duggars are fine people and are simply receiving with love the ones the Lord has blessed them with. There is nothing strange with having a large family, at one time that was the norm. My grandfather was one of 14 children.

Jim Bob and Michelle explain more about why they have the size of family they do at their website.

Regards...

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

True. But still, don't you think that 20 kids is ...more than enough for a family to raise? I could see two or three, but 20!

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

ardvark, I don't think 20 children was ever "the norm." Yes, 100+ years ago families were larger than they are now, because the mortality rate was so high that many children died young, and parents needed physical help (for example, on farms), so they cranked out a lot of kids. But 20 was never the norm, and all 20 rarely (if ever) would've survived anyway.

As for the Duggars, I have many problems with them, including the one that prompted me to post this thread. Then there's the sexist way they're raising their kids--the girls do things like cook, and are being raised to aspire to nothing more than popping out one baby after another, while the boys do other chores and look forward to careers. Then there's the HORRIFIC ecological footprint they're causing. Do you have any idea how many disposable diapers they use every year? You know where those end up? (And, yes, I've heard the INCORRECT story that they don't use disposable diapers. The Duggars themselves have admitted they do.) They're doing at least 10 loads of laundry PER DAY. I could go on and on but there's really no point, as the point is that a family with 20 children is doing a lot of damage to the environment, but they're not only unconcerned with that, they can't even admit that there's an overpopulation problem.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Well, of course, it's an academic exercise.

The average human being occupies 2 square feet of ground 'space'.
There are 27,878,400 square feet per mile.
Jacksonville, Florida occupies 841 square miles.

(841 x 27,878,400)/4 = 5,861,433,600 '2 square foot' units, is not enough to contain the entire, current, human population of the Earth.

It would take a U.S. municipality occupying more than 1004.5 square miles to contain the entire world population. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, only one municipality - Anchorage, Alaska, at 1,697.3 square miles - is large enough.

Planet Earth:
Area of land: 148,326,000 km2 (57,268,900 square miles)
(57,268,900 x 27,878,400)/4 = 399,141,325,440,000 '2 square foot' units, enough (on paper) to contain 399 trillion, 141 billion, 325 million, 440 thousand average human beings.

Talk about global warming!

Thanks, Snowhog. To be honest, I was way too lazy to do the math myself--but I kind of figured someone would come along and do it!

[Snowhog]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

I believe I got the math correct, so...

At a world population of 6,852,472,823, and a land mass area of 57,268,900 square miles, we have:

57,268,900 square miles x 27,878,400 square feet per mile = 1,596,565,301,760,000 square feet of land mass

1,596,565,301,760,000 square feet / 6,852,472,823 people = 1 person for each 232,991 square feet, or

1 person for each 5 acres (232,991 / 43,560).

The problem with figures is they can be misrepresented in an argument. In the final figure above, at 1 person per every 5 acres, world population density is rather light. You would be hard pressed to even see your neighbor. But, raw density figures don't tell the entire story - far from it. More relevant are the worlds resource distributions and arable land areas vs population concentrations. That is where we are facing the real problem, and why, even today, famine is one of the biggest risks humanity still faces.

2011 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics

[ardvark71]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

As for the Duggars, I have many problems with them, including the one that prompted me to post this thread. Then there's the sexist way they're raising their kids--the girls do things like cook, and are being raised to aspire to nothing more than popping out one baby after another, while the boys do other chores and look forward to careers. Then there's the HORRIFIC ecological footprint they're causing. Do you have any idea how many disposable diapers they use every year? You know where those end up? (And, yes, I've heard the INCORRECT story that they don't use disposable diapers. The Duggars themselves have admitted they do.) They're doing at least 10 loads of laundry PER DAY. I could go on and on but there's really no point, as the point is that a family with 20 children is doing a lot of damage to the environment, but they're not only unconcerned with that, they can't even admit that there's an overpopulation problem.

Hi...

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Regards...

[Detonate]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Take into account that a large portion of the land mass of the earth is uninhabitable. The polar regions and the deserts, for example.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

We'll have to agree to disagree.

That's fine. But I wish I knew which of the *FACTS* I presented you're disagreeing with.

1) As for the Duggars, I have many problems with them, including the one that prompted me to post this thread --> i.e., claiming that 7 billion people can live in Jacksonville, Florida.

2) Then there's the sexist way they're raising their kids--the girls do things like cook, and are being raised to aspire to nothing more than popping out one baby after another, while the boys do other chores and look forward to careers.

3) Then there's the HORRIFIC ecological footprint they're causing. Do you have any idea how many disposable diapers they use every year? You know where those end up? (And, yes, I've heard the INCORRECT story that they don't use disposable diapers. The Duggars themselves have admitted they do.)

4) They're doing at least 10 loads of laundry PER DAY.

5) I could go on and on but there's really no point, as the point is that a family with 20 children is doing a lot of damage to the environment, but they're not only unconcerned with that, they can't even admit that there's an overpopulation problem.

I'm truly interested in knowing which fact(s) you're disagreeing with.

[Qqmike]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

DYK, I rather doubt you'll find many thinking, aware people who disagree with you. Clearly, the Duggars exhibit blatant ignorance, lack of concern for their fellow man, and narcissism beyond belief--probably driven by some nutso religious fervor. For damn sure, everyone on Earth can't carry on like they are--the world would go to hell in a heartbeat.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Qqmike, I know. But when someone says we need to agree to disagree--and all I've presented are things that are true--it's a bit puzzling, you know?

[SteveRiley]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

While I am unconvinced the Earth is anything more than a rocky ball hurling around a mediocre star, you have to respect the planet's amazing self-correction mechanisms. Human history is replete with stories about failed attempts to control and confine nature. This world was here long before we arrived, and it'll be here long after we're all gone.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

.....
1 person for each 5 acres (232,991 / 43,560).

The problem with figures is they can be misrepresented in an argument. In the final figure above, at 1 person per every 5 acres, world population density is rather light. You would be hard pressed to even see your neighbor. But, raw density figures don't tell the entire story - far from it. More relevant are the worlds resource distributions and arable land areas vs population concentrations. That is where we are facing the real problem, and why, even today, famine is one of the biggest risks humanity still faces.
......

Subtract the 8 million square miles of deserts and the antarctic and that leaves only about 4 acres per person.

But, each person, or group of people, need land areas to generate resources, grow food and to take away and dispose of the refuse, which increases the land demands. I suspect that this would leave only about 1 acre per person, which is about the size of an American football field. This is why populations move to vertical housing.

Other issues are the limits on resources. About 1,430 cu miles of rain fall on the USA per year, which could over it to a depth of about 30 inches. Yet, our demand for water is so great that we recycle our fresh water supply an average of 6 times before we dump it into the oceans because it has become too salty (more than 1,500 ppm of salt). The water you drank today was flushed down someone's toilet yesterday and tomorrow some doctor down stream from you will use what you flushed to wash his hands prior to his next operation.

Here is how much water it takes to make various things:

How Many Gallons of Water is in a . . .
Car
It takes an estimated 39,090 gallons of water to make a car. It's unclear if that includes the more 2,000 gallons used to make its tires--each tire takes 518 gallons to make. [1]

Pair of Jeans
It takes around 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to produce just one pair of regular ol' blue jeans. [2]

Cotton T-Shirt
Not as bad as jeans, it still takes a whopping 400 gallons of water to grow the cotton required for an ordinary cotton shirt.

Single Board of Lumber
5.4 gallons of water are used to grow enough wood for one lumber board. [3]

Barrel of Beer
In order to process a single barrel of beer (32 gallons of booze), 1,500 gallons of water are sucked down. [3]

To-Go Latte
It takes 53 gallons to make every latte, as I've noted before: (Who woulda thought? --GG)

That sugar, doesn't that have to be grown as cane first? Hm. And then there's that plastic lid, which has to be created and distributed over hundreds of miles. And doesn't plastic require a pretty vast amount of water and oil to produce? Come to think of it, there's the sleeve and the cup itself too . . .

Gallon of Paint
Takes 13 gallons of water to make.

Individual Bottled Water
This irony shouldn't be lost on anyone: it takes 1.85 gallons of water to manufacture the plastic for the bottle in the average commercial bottle of water.

One Ton of . . .
Steel: 62,000 gallons of water
Cement: 1,360 gallons

One Pound of . . .
Wool: 101 gallons of water
Cotton: 101 gallons
Plastic: 24 gallons
Synthetic Rubber: 55 gallons

And that's just some of the stuff we make--check out how much water it takes to grow all of our food. We all need to make a conscious effort to watch what we buy for its water footprint. And it's not just the US, though--many countries around the world have alarmingly high water footprints, too. So keep your eyes open when you're shopping around--we're wasting way too much water.

There is NO substitute for fresh water, and with an exploding population conservation measures are quickly swamped. Desalinate sea water? Haul ice bergs from the poles? Which nation can afford to do that?

The pressure that will be put on water use alone will be enough to force drastic control measures to be implemented. Imagine that your ocean liner sunk and you, along with a dozen other people are stuck on a life boat with a limited supply of food, water and space. But, some folks along the edge keep plucking people out of the water (or couples keep popping babies, Dugger style, for fun or religion). It doesn't take a genius to see that those who keep supplying new mouths to support are demanding that those who already have a seat on the boat give up part of their space, food and water so that the baby-poppers can continue to fulfill their religious edicts or simply enjoy unrestrained sexual pleasure. The time is rapidly approaching that those who are presently living are going to elect to put restraints on who can procreate children, and how many they can have, just like China has done. Unless, of course, everyone likes living in countries as crowded as China and India and aren't concerned about this.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Squeezing 7 billion people into 841 square miles

Excellent post, GG.