Civilization's Future

Starvation causes the reduction in the number of predators in the theoretical predator-prey model. Starvation also reduces the number of people in localities that have exceeded the level of sustainability. Three other maladies can also reduce the human population; war, plague and pestilence. Each of these represent common means of reducing the human population. Yet though each cause temporary decreases in human population, none have proved calamitous to our species.

Consider the most recent global war, World War II. During it, an estimated 72 million people died, nearly 4% of the human population. Yet, when plotting global population over the 20th century, there’s nary a blip.

Let’s look a little farther back. The European continent had other periods of horrific warfare on its soil. For thirty years, from about 1620 to 1650 battles were almost constant. Over that time, most of the old Holy Roman Empire suffered civilian casualties of from 15 to 65% of the total. Yet, enough people remained to enable the population to continue growing and fighting for hundreds of years thereafter. War comes at a horrible cost but it hasn’t affected the overall trend in human population growth.

Plague is no less horrible. It’s the result of a bacterium that invades the human body. Reading historical passages about living during the Black Death or Bubonic Plague would cause anyone’s spine to shiver. Like war, plague caused death rates of from 16 to 50% of the continental population. These certainly made for a dip in human populations but again when looking at the long term, there’s little evidence of a fall in the overall growth rate.

Pestilence is a super-group of the plague, i.e. a pandemic.As we’ve already considered it, let’s consider another traditional problem.

There’s swarms. Locusts, cicadas, and grasshoppers gather in the millions. Though they don’t directly eat humans, they will eat the vegetation. But, humans equally need the vegetation to live. Thus, people may starve in the wake of swarms. Yet, aside from the Bible, there are few accounts of insect swarms causing huge decreases in human populations across large areas. And again, swarms have not caused any reduction to the steady growth.

Trends show that humans maximize their population until calamity strikes. But temporary downturns have done little to nothing to the overall trend in population growth. Our instincts drive us to make more and more people. Is this the best we can aim for the future? To maximize our population?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Energy Resource. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.