Maximum Capacity for Earth?

"The carrying capacity of an ecosystem is defined as the "maximum population size of a species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future."

- This was a topic brought up in my math class by my teacher and he stated that the earth would reach it's "Maximum Capacity" for humans, i.e. Earth will not be able to support the amount of humans estimated to inhabit the earth at a specific time. Now he said it would take anywhere from 25-50 years for this to occur. I would like anyone with any insider or background information to inform me more on the subject. Do you think that the maximum capacity of the Earth will be reached? What could we do to fix this or prevent this?

We have a long way before we reach a maximum capacity. Advances in terraforming (which are already in action) take care of space availability and also new technology developments which transform matter into various substances help with necessary raw materials. If we discover a way to transform the Sun's energy into matter, we are pretty much set for a while.

Assuming there is continuous population growth, we will have to start mining nearby planets, but I'm sure that's at least a couple of centuries away, if not much more.

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Assuming there is continuous population growth, we will have to start mining nearby planets, but I'm sure that's at least a couple of centuries away, if not much more.

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Funny thing I heard a simular statement: an discussion about how the moon formed by the impact of mass offer a period of time, yet neither the increase in mass nor momentum of collisions every seem to effect the moon's orbit?

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yet neither the increase in mass nor momentum of collisions every seem to effect the moon's orbit?

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that is why that theory is flawed.the most accepted theory i have heard on the moons origin is that a big ass meteor or comet or something collided with earth in its early years,causing the "moon" to break off and go into orbit around the collided planet.


i think it is more likely we will start collonizing other planets before we reach our maximum capacity.what would that be anyway.would it be when we have so many people,the world starts to look like Japan,or when we have so many people that our resourses go too fast and we consume them all completely?

I too agree that it will be a long time before we reach mass capacity (Im a little uncomfortable with the meaning of this term). Surely the earth will be drained of its affordable oil much sooner than we will reach global saturation. After the oil runs out the global role call will dwindle and it will surely be sometime before populations are reduplicated.
Surely none of this will happen over night, but nonetheless without abundant oil our distended populations will deflate.

when you talk about maximum carrying capacity the idea is that everyone shares the resources, an equal distribution, its kind of redundant to talk about running out of resources in 25 years when over half the world right now is starving,

We have already reached it, but it is only with our tech that we have. The maximum capacity should be defined by saying that the planets maximum capacity is when all the people get what they need to survive and not to destroy the earth. so we have reached it. but we can change it. if we use indoor crop growing we can use 1/4 of the land that we are currently using to provide food. and indoor crop growing is immune to drought and other natural disasters. if everybody just get a house big enough to live in and not a bit bigger we can save more forests and as we don't then need farms to produce food the land can be reclaimed by forests. and efficiency must also be as high as possible. take a normal internal combustion petrol powered car and compare it to a electrical car, the electric car doesn't go to far but it uses 3 times less energy to go the same distance because it doesn't waste energy on sound and heat. and that can be made even more efficient by reducing the weight of the car and using more efficient batteries. and mass transit uses even less energy. my point being that if we become conscious consumers and become more efficient we can make the maximum capacity 20 billion or even more. it is all about how we live and use resources.

here is something interesting that i wrote.

The Perfect Government

● Agriculture: All the crops is grown indoor under grow lights and optional hydroponics and will grow all day and night to shorten the time needed to grow crops and provide more food with less land. The best thing about growing indoors will make farms absolute to crops because one can use a tower in the city to grow the same amount of crops because only one third of the land will be enough and crops will be much more successful as outside conditions will not effect the crops. This is very great as crops can be grown in cities on desert coastlines by using desalinated water, which will minimize destruction of forests. All animals will be brought up as normal but the farms will be as close as possible to cities to cut down on truck usage. No fish will be fished out of the see it will all be grown on land in artificial lakes to prevent destruction of ocean ecology.
● Education: Children is never our child, even if the child is genetically yours. The children is raised collectively so that the children over a few generations will be learning the same thing from all the people in order to prevent cultures from existing which is the thing which causes discrimination. Children will go to school which would be the most advanced schools possible and all the children will get a college eduction. It will all be free of charge and the total cost of the school will be paid by the state. At the end of school and college all the graduates and even the people that did not graduate shell be analysed in term of personality to see if there social skills and there personality live up to standards if not they will have to go back and do courses to learn it again and if the fail or do not want to do it again they will have three choices, one is to leave the country, the other is to live in a facility not to ever come out again or they would be executed if they do not chose one of the other two. The facility might also be replaced by living with family members and they will be provided with food also. But these people will be analysed every year and if they do reach the personality standard they may leave and get a work, there will be people who covertly analyse theme to prevent that they take advantage of this service, if one is found guilty of taking advantage of this service they will be executed. The yearly analyses will be done with a polygraph and a person that recognises when a person lies and if they do not pass the will be given another test a week later to ensure that the results is correct.
● Protection Force: The defence force and the police will be merged into the Protection force, and there job is to act as police inside the borders and as defence force on the borders. The defence force on the borders will only be to prevent illegal people to come into the country, not to get more territory. It will be a neutral state and it will never take part in a war because war is a massive waste of minerals and resources which shortens the life of nature and the earth and what are we going to do if our home planet is destroyed by ourselves, we can go and live in space and another but we will never be able to let our children experience the earth. People who believe in war does not have the right to live and if a major defective human being. They will be responsible to enforce laws. Any person who is found guilty beyond any doubt of any crime will be executed after 10 years in prison. The 10 year period is for family to accept the fate of the person and also is there to investigate the case thoroughly to prevent innocent deaths.
● Economic Development: The economy will be controlled and shaped by a group of ten people which is the most experienced in economic development and there terms will be as long as no one challenges them. And this is how all high positions will be, they are unlimited terms but if someone challenges them and the challenger wins the defeated will be out of office the next day and the new person will take over.
● Energy: Research will be continuously done in energy to develop more economical renewable energy sources. Research will also be extensively be done in free energy generation, and claims of free energy generation.
● Corporations: all corporations have no owner, it has an independent account for profits and money and will operate as a independent body of the state but the owner will be indicated as state owned but the state is truly owned by the people so it's the peoples operation. All decisions in corporations will be made by a voting of the workers and the votes will be over viewed by all the workers. One person will then announce the vote outcome after every worker has searched for potential fraud or corruption. That person which announces it will also be the person who is the director of the corporation and the outcome of the vote will be what he does about whatever the vote was about, he has no say accept his vote which is equal to the workers vote. Corporations will be automated to the most it can to cut down on work and people will work shorter hours with much more employees and will work 24 hours a day 6 days a week and most employees will only work for about 3 hours just to check over all the robots. Hours will be shorten as there is more employees. And every one who applies for a job will get one immediately and it will then shorten the work of all the other employees. But if a specific business has more workers they will be informed that there is more workers then in the other businesses and they will be asked to report if they want to move to another business and if there is no one they use the most relevant CV. There will be for every product two or more producers of the product so that when it is sold to the people they will have two choices, but the catch is that neither of the producers may advertise, this is so that a consumers choice is not influenced by a ad, but only based on quality and experience with the product. Any and all new corporation schemes is owned by the state and if it is relevant the new corporation will be build and started by the state and will fully be controlled like the other corporations, by the workers.
● Voting: Voting will be done electronically with a computer and a unique identity code and password. A computer together with the code and password will be able to vote one vote per poll, and only polls that affect a person. A computer and unlimited internet will be provided to every person and the fibre wire communications will be the responsibility for the state to provide trough the tax.
● Tax: Taxes will only be collected from corporation profit and will be allocated to the state to provide funding for material and supplies for all the state responsibility.
● Wages: nobody receives a wage but they receive 10 percent of the profit of all the state corporations after it has been allocated to the state account. That 10 percent will be divided up between the working people of all the corporations. People in high positions will receive a bit more of the money because of there higher responsibility. These rewards will not be used to provide food it is completely there for you to use for what ever you want to.
● Food: Food will be provided to everyone that works and there wives and/or children, and the food will not be given away in as much quantity as they want it. It will be regulated by a credit system that is provided to all in the same quantity, IF they worked and that same quantity will be provided to the wife/husband and children if needed. The credits will be worked out to provide necessary nutrition and a small bit more. There will be two food products of every kind without any names, they will only be categorised in the two groups by separation and numbering of each group. All the food must be produced inside the border of the state to prevent food shortages.
● Health: Health care will be free of charge and availability to every working citizen or direct family of the working person.
● Family Size: A person that works can have one wife/husband and two children. If they have a bigger family they will not be provided for by the state and it will be law not to have more then two children. If a person has a child with while not having a husband they will be executed while pregnant. Condoms will be delivered to every man. Woman will be advised to make sure they let no man enter them without a condom or they have to use pills to stop them falling pregnant.
● Science and Technology: Science and technology needs to be as efficient and productive as possible to make sure we only go forward and not stay stuck at one place.
● Sport: contact sport will be abolished. The reason for this is contact sport is a big stress on the body and it provokes and learn people that fighting and aggression is correct and the only way to achieve great success, but it is not it is very bad to harm another human being!!! And it is also very expensive in the sense medical cost, even if the medical service is free. And a sport like rugby would cost people a lot of there rewards which in turn will make a select few supper rich which will create a massive class deference which in turn results in discrimination and over pollution by these individual extravagant living.
● Housing: every body will live in massive buildings 1km by 1km which will be no lower then 10 levels and it will stretch at least 2 levels under ground in which the electric cars will be in. The biggest part of the roof will be used for solar water heating and solar panels. Inside in the middle of the first, second and third floor there will be a big park which will stretch up all three levels and will be used as the primary recreational centre. The top floor and if the building is very high, the second from the top will be used as the medical centre and the school.
● Transport: no one will own a car and mass transit will be the first and biggest option. This mass transport would be Maglev trains in the majority and there will be one at every station every 15 minutes, that will amount to a massive number of trains. The second biggest one will be electric cars which no one will own, it will be state owned and they will be parked under the buildings which people will live in.

I think this might work very good