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From: jon@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Response to Keith Lynch's anti-mathematical flame
Message-ID: <3563.510793647@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 18:09:10 EST
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Posted: Sun Mar  9 18:09:10 1986
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>	 From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!oberon!smeagol!earle@ucbvax.berkeley.edu	(Greg Earle)
>	 ...
>	Do you live in a cave?	It IS a bad thing - most (if not all) of the
>	world's ecosystem problems can be directly traced to humankind multiplying
>	like flies and devouring all available space!!!!
>
>     I don't think a 2% growth rate is 'multiplying like flies', and I
>   don't think 10 acres per person is 'devouring all available space'.
>   This message seems quite hysterical.  Do you hate mankind?	Do you
>   hate yourself?

    How long should we keep up this 2% growth rate?

    Area of Earth ~ 2.01062e+08 sq. miles (all land assumed).
    Current population ~ 4*10^9 (actually substantially greater).

    Year    Population	    Area (sq. mi)   Area needed / Area of the Earth
			    needed @
			    10 acres/person
    -----   -------------   --------------- -------------------------------
       0    4e+09	    6.25e+07	    0.310849
     100    2.89786e+10     4.5279e+08	    2.25199
     200    2.0994e+11	    3.28031e+09     16.3149
     300    1.52094e+12     2.37647e+10     118.196
     400    1.10187e+13     1.72167e+11     856.286
     500    7.98263e+13     1.24729e+12     6203.49
     600    5.78313e+14     9.03614e+12     44942.1
     700    4.18967e+15     6.54637e+13     325590
     800    3.03527e+16     4.74261e+14     2.35878e+06
     900    2.19895e+17     3.43585e+15     1.70885e+07
    1000    1.59306e+18     2.48915e+16     1.238e+08

    OK, so I might be off by a constant here or there (the only way  I
could find out how big an acre was in square  miles  was  the  'units'
program). The  end  result  doesn't  matter,  just  wait  a  few  more
centuries.

    The message you were responding to may have been  overstated,  but
no more (if that much). Clearly we CANNOT continue  to	expand	at  an
exponential rate for long (on a historical timescale).	 This  is  not
hysteria but fact supported by your own numbers. Which does not  imply
in any way that we have to start killing people to prevent it  (unless
you think that contraception == killing people, which I doubt most  of
us agree with).

    And no, I neither hate mankind nor	myself.  I  like  both	of  us
enough to want a future in which everyone has resources and energy  to
spare.

    -- Jon Leech (jon@csvax.caltech.edu)
    __@/