Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel
From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
Subject: Re: Human pop. stats.
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.044039.7333@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
References: <1991Apr6.205855.3131@desire.wright.edu> <21531@crg5.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1991 04:40:39 GMT

In article <21531@crg5.UUCP> szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
>The World Bank figures show ZPG in 2050 at 10.5 billion +/- 500 million,
>by fitting the curve for changes in the rate of growth, not just projecting
>the latest rate of growth linearly.  It did not project beyond this.  
>
>My thesis is that beyond the ZPG point population growth will not "level 
>out", it will become negative, reaching an equilibrium of -50%/generation.

Who cares?  10.5 billion is an obscenely huge population that we won't
be able to sustain anyway.  The current 5 or so billion is too many.
The only way we can currently feed all these people is by using large
amounts of chemicals in our agriculture.  We can't keep that up forever.
Let's face it.  The Earth is overpopulated now.  Downward trends
observed in the West are irrelevant.

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca