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Global human population pushing Earth past breaking point (news.flinders.edu.au)

submitted 2 days ago by Beep@lemmus.org to c/world@lemmy.world

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Study.

The Earth has already exceeded its ability to support the global population sustainably, with new research warning of increasing pressure on food security, climate stability, and human wellbeing. However, slowing population growth and raising global awareness could still offer humanity some hope.

The study shows that humans have pushed well beyond the planet’s long-term capacity and that continued growth under current patterns of consumption will intensify environmental and social challenges for communities worldwide.

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[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I found the study a but confusing at first

What they seem to have done is taken population data for humans (some of the early data has larger error bars) and mapped two population models to them:

the Rickler model - used by fisheries to predict stock
the Gompertz curve that is used for quite a few things

Both of these models have a carrying capacity that can be calculated.

I'm not sure how they took into account technological jumps that changed carrying capacity. They seem to have ignored that but I'd assume it would at the very least make the fit harder and I'm suspicious that either model can account for it.

Their conclusion actually both notes that technology can be important and that carrying capacity is tough to estimate:

A meta-analysis by van den Bergh and Rietveld examined 51 studies that produced 94 estimates of a limit to the global human population. Their median meta-prediction from these 51 studies was 7.7 billion people, but ranged from 650 million assuming a low-technology future where water availability is the main limiting factor, to 288 billion under the assumption of the ‘best’ future technology for all countries (with most estimates well above currently projected future global population sizes).

But I think it then goes on to overstate their contribution:

The uncertainty stems mainly from the many different assumptions and dimensions considered in the projections, a problem we avoided by basing our estimates of maximum and sustainable carrying capacity on the population data alone

This isn't my field though, I just struggled to understand what they were actually basing this claim on and figured I may as well share it.