HUMAN CARRYING CAPACITIES: a new economics

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HUMAN CARRYING CAPACITIES a new economics

• Rob Ord, PhD, LLB

I made a mistake in presuming that the
self-interest of organizations, specifically
banks and others, was such that they were best
capable of protecting their own shareholders and
their equity in the firms. (former chairman
of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan , October
2008)
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The Meadows Projection
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Food availability in terms of land
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A big picture economic model based on limited
resources

• would treat human economic growth like any
  other biological growth curve (i.e. Fig 1)
• would see redundancies for what they are
  literally humans excess to capacity
• would predict when debt could not be repaid
  because resources are no longer available
• would take account of humans highly evolved
  social contracts
• would involve multi-perspective thinking based on
  legal (Hart) and biological (K) fundamentals
• from the bottom-up as when weighing human
  resources against automation.
• from the top-down as with the reduced
  vulnerability of a country rich in non-renewable
  resources versus one which cannot supply its
  population with a basic need.

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Long term recovery Ord, 2006

• The predicted result of 100 years of 1-child
  families on a per generation basis, assuming all
  are reproducing adults and exclusive of lag
  effects is as follows
• ________________________________________________
  __
• 25 y 50 y 75 y
  100 y
• 8 Billion ? 4 Billion ? 2 Billion ? 1 Billion
  ? 0.5 Billion
• 2010 2035 2060 2085 2110
• ________________________________________________
  __
• Even 2 billion humans may no longer present a
  significant threat to global weather, ecology, or
  supply, given technology environmental
  awareness.

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CONCLUSION

• Resource depletion and pollution threaten the
  global carrying capacity K. The global economic
  debacle is proposed to be an early warning that
  population is in excess of K.
• Realistic models that internalise physical,
  biological, and social parameters are needed to
  establish a new economic paradigm.
• States other than China and India need to
  depopulate, automate and conserve.

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Thesis

• Debt is postponed poverty, which if unpayed leads
  to demographic entrapment and pressure on K.
• Population growth in humans is density dependent,
  with regional 'K' s.
• It is proposed that current trends in food,
  water, energy, land, the housing crisis and
  associated debt are harbingers that in the United
  States 'K' will decline.
• A new US 'K' based on remaining unpolluted
  resources is likely to be lower than 300 M.
• In the United States population reduction to 'K'
  can be voluntary or involuntary.
• Other countries may not have such a choice.

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'TOTAL CAPABLE COUPLES'

• The situation is not so simple when lag effects
  are estimated, but the reduction is still
  profound. According to the cited source, 7 are
  too old and 27 too young to have children.
  Furthermore an aging population is likely to
  assume a higher death rate.
• ________________________________________________
  __
• 60 years 140 years
• 3.5 Billion ?? 2 Billion ??? 1 Billion
• 2010 2070 2150
• ________________________________________________
  __
• Global average deaths set at 10/1000 rather
  than 9/1000 66 of couples are assumed to
• have 1 child over a 30 year period
• Currently, death rate is 63 million people per
  year (global average 9/1000
• births are 21/1000 fertility rate is 2.7
  population is estimated at 6.55 billion
• but is assumed to be 7 billion at 2010 source
  US Population Reference Bureau
• If single child families started in 2010 and the
  death rate remained constant, population would
  start to decrease immediately.

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Verhulst Logistic Growth

• dN/dt rN (K - N)/K
• Nt K / (1 b e-rt)?
• b (K - No )/ No
• ln b t'/r

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http//www.cnr.berkeley.edu/biocon/BC20Class20No
tes/67-7220Factors20Growth.pdf
Source Lectures from Centre for Biological
Control, UC Berkeley
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'Populus' Graphics 1Alstad, D, Anderson A, Roe
L, Noorbaloochi, S and C Bratteli, Populus
Simulations of Population Biology (U. Minnesota
Dept. of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.