The amount of resources on the planet is finite, but you have to wonder just how long we can sustain ourselves with what we have now. Frankly we are making better and better use of some of our resources simply from our addiction of making things smaller. Guess how much metal we saved by recycling our old iPods and switching them all to 60% thinner ones? Or perhaps jamming in a phone in there too. I suppose that's a rather narrow way of thinking, food can never be optimized in such a way, but then again, the harvesting of food or whatever can be much much more efficient.
I'm reminded of two conflicting theories regarding the carrying capacity of earth. One is from Malthus who stated that human growth is exponential while resources grow linearly, and when we reach that intersection, people will just starve to death or whatever.
However the much more optimistic theory from Boserup is the one I think we will actually follow. He states that carrying capacity stays at one level, and whenever the population becomes a strain, humans have always devised new plans, new technologies to fit that, raising the carrying capacity. Some of the notable ones are simply colonization, government policies and the two green revolutions.
Oh well, I live in Canada, we have a lot of land and very very little people, not a huge worry for us anytime soon.
I was going to state Borseup's theory. Malthus' theory sounded good a couple hundred years ago, but now that we can make stimulated foods, as long with artificial foods, we have a much more slim chance of that happening.
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Unlike others, I don't think overpopulation will work itself out. The "World overpopulated by XXXX" dates are usually false, since they have such a large margin for being incorrect. Their theories state that if things stay the way they are or get worse, disregarding natural disasters, disease, and other natural aspects of population hindrance.
QUOTE(Shinryuji @ Feb 12 2010, 10:42 AM) It won't for much longer, if the recession returns, which it probably will. However, there are so many emptier countries, like France, that immigrants could go to. Also, TURKEY IS NOT PART OF EUROPE, NOR IS RUSSIA. THEY ARE ASIA. GET OUT OF THE EU! OR AT LEAST LEARN SOME GEOGRAPHY FIRST!
DISCLAIMER: This is coming from someone who is both Greek and Lebanese, as well as Sweedish and English, a true blue mongrel. Nor am I a racist, but the bounaries are there for a reason. I mean for fuck sake, Russia is 2/3 of the whole asiatic continent!