Re: Comments on pop

On Fri, 13 October 2000, "Barclay, Tom" wrote:

> 1) I looked at the economics in FT of shifting large masses of people
> (enough to make a difference of say 1% to Earth's population). The
amount of
> ship mass required even with unsanctioned packing densities is still
> outrageous. 

I agree. You won't get 1 million people on colonies by 2070. MAYBE by
2370.

> 2) I base my conclusions on Earth as not overpopulated (necessarily)
on two
> things: 1) the fact the biosphere can probably comfortably support a
fair
> few more people than we have now, 

Estimates I've read suggest we can handle up to 13 billion. Note that
the world
 will hit a population crunch in some nations well before we hit the
limit. It'
s already happening. And this is also assuming that we end up doing
something t
o stop potentially catastrophic changes, such as ozone depletion and
green hous
e gas emission, that is already happening.

>2) talks with Beth where we briefly
> touched on some UN population studies which suggest maybe our
population
> will actually decrease (though that is pretty hopeful) to the idea
that
> we'll peak out somewhere (IIRC) around 6-9 billion - which is fine
given the
> advances in biological and energy technology we're talking about.

This is achievable theoretically. It's a problem socially, but we have
more tha
n adequate -- and safe -- methods of birth control.

> 3) Increasing life spans and economic prosperity kill birth rates. If
people
> are positing 80 year lifespans (avg) in the colonies, figure that
birth
> rates will be unlikely to encourage people to have 8 kids. 

I think that, in most cases, you are NOT going to get women having 8
child fami
lies in the future. A lot, socially and economically, has changed since
the day
s when one in three births resulted in the death of the mother, the
baby, or bo
th. By 2070, colonization will be more mechanical and less manual. If
Jon's hug
e starships are run by a fraction of the crew size of modern day
equivalents, e
xpect the same for mining and farming. 

Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
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