|
|
|
|
|
|
by lambdadmitry
1644 days ago
|
|
|
> We're past the sustainable carraying capacity because we have already brought about mass extinction events, irreversible destruction of habitat and environment with our existing population People drove megafauna extinct before they invented the wheel. Great Britain lost most of its forest, irreversibly (for at least next few millennia), before Romans arrived. Romans, in turn, demolished half of Europe worth of forests to support iron production. Taking that argument seriously it means that "the sustainable carrying capacity" is way below what we had in 300 BCE. Alternatively, it just suggests that there is no inherent carrying capacity, it's always of function of technology. As technology changes, the carrying capacity increases. Thankfully, our technology improves faster than ever before in the last few centuries and continues to accelerate. This suggests your core assumption is likely to become obsolete in not too distant future, even if it isn't now. |
|
|
No it doesn't, because I'm not saying there's one carrying capacity that's somehow inherent to earth.
Of course it's related to technology and lifestyles and our environmental impact. What made you think I was trying to say otherwise?
Clearly if we got all our energy from burning wood and food from hunting and gathering, we couldn't even support 1% of our population without massive unsustainable habitat destruction. And yes in the past there have been many unsustainable societies that we might like to have changed but that's done now we are dealing with what's in front of us.
And with our current environmental impact, the current population is not sustainable. Maybe technology and societies will change enough in future that it could sustainably support today's levels of population, but that's irrelevant. That doesn't help the 53% of grassland birds in North America being wiped out in the past 50 years.