Currently it takes 1.2 earths' worth of resources to support the earth's population, which means the earth cannot support all of us without starting to deplete resources. So yes, the planet IS overpopulated.
> Currently it takes 1.2 earths' worth of resources to support
LOL, this kind of "x amount of Earths" to support ourselves always make me laugh, because it assumes energy cannot be produced and that productivity gains do not exist. 30 years ago we were supposed to reach the "Peak petrol" point very soon, yet we found new ways to extract fossil fuels and push back that peak time to a much later time, leaving us time to develop alternative energies as well.
And we are still just literally scratching the Earth's surface. The Earth is a ball and most of its resources are far below the ground.
What is meant by that is that thebcurrent worldnpopulation exceeds Earth's carrying capacity by a factor of 0.2. That means that there are more people than the Earth can sustainably -- note the world sustainably. Once you overshoot the carrying capacity, you're in a situation where even the Earth's renewable resources are being depleted, in a way that may not recover for a very long time.
Resources on earth started depleting as soon as the planet was formed. Was the earth overpopulated before there was any life on it?
Resources are finite. They are finite no matter how many humans there are on the earth. You are referring to consumption which is a large problem, but also a fixable one (edit: to a certain point, of course). It is not overpopulation.
Petty much every documentary I have seen the last 5 years claims humans are increasingly ruining the planet at a non-sustainable rate. I expected this to be common knowledge by now.
If you prefer reading about it, Collapse by Jared Diamond[1] is an exceptional book on the subject, with facts and references for every claim and anecdote.
According to who? I don't see how that makes sense. Many resources are not renewable, so having an extra .2 Earth's worth of them would not make it more sustainable.
>Currently it takes 1.2 earths' worth of resources to support the earth's population
So the earth we are living on is in fact 1.2 earths, which is in fact 1.44 earths, which is in fact 1.728 earths, which is in fact 2.0736 earths, which is in fact at least two earths?
I would not understate the risks of overpopulation. BUT this "1.2 Earths" thing is singularly useless. It could be of no concern in some domains, and much worse in others. "1.2 Earths" says nothing useful.
LOL, this kind of "x amount of Earths" to support ourselves always make me laugh, because it assumes energy cannot be produced and that productivity gains do not exist. 30 years ago we were supposed to reach the "Peak petrol" point very soon, yet we found new ways to extract fossil fuels and push back that peak time to a much later time, leaving us time to develop alternative energies as well.
And we are still just literally scratching the Earth's surface. The Earth is a ball and most of its resources are far below the ground.