# Will the earth be able to support around 9.7 billion people in 2050? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204 "2016-02-15T14:19:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/41 "2016-02-20T01:54:54Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > My understanding was closer to snowthx’s (commercial beef ranching being a subset of food production.) Do you have a cite that African deforestation is largely due to commercial logging? If that drives deforestation, what becomes of the land after the timber is produced? Not really a cite, but check out Wikipedia, which flags fuel/cooking wood and illegal logging. The land, in my experience, tends to become scrubland. African cities and villages tend to be surrounded by a broad swath of scrub caused by scavenging cooking fuel. > **[Deforestation by continent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_by_region)** > > Rates and causes of deforestation vary from region to region around the world. In 2009, two-thirds of the world's forests were located in just 10 countries: Russia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, China, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, India, and Peru. > > Global annual deforestation is estimated to total 13.7 million hectares a year, similar to the area of Greece. Half of the area experiencing deforestation consists of new forests or forest growth. In addition to dir... ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/42 "2016-02-20T11:46:47Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > My understanding was closer to snowthx’s (commercial beef ranching being a subset of food production.) This is south american, not african. The commercial cattle ranching is not viable in the dense forested zones of the Africa. The trypanosomiasis. > [@](#): > > If that drives deforestation, what becomes of the land after the timber is produced? It is usual for small farmers to move in. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/43 "2016-02-20T15:10:31Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > China has had a population bulge, which is a common phenomena anywhere that experiences sudden access to health care and the resulting rise in life expetectancy. With or without the one-child policy, China’s birth rate is not particularly high. Which is actually worth mentioning. Even if the birthrates are falling more people are living longer and babies are surviving into adulthood. People are living for decades with underlying health problems which woud have killed them in weeks just a few scant decades ago. It turns out that even basic health actions can greatly increase survivability and lifespan.The young are surviving much more; child death has gone from being “common” to “unlikely”, middle age illness are now “pop these pills and cut back on xyz”, rather then die in a few days. If only the young and the elderly would do the decent thing and drop dead like naturei intended…:p:D No population problem. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/44 "2016-02-20T15:20:21Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > At this point, only a few countries have any real use for birth control–mainly India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. > > [Countries with the biggest populations in 2050](http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/18/news/countries-with-biggest-populations/) :rolleyes: Most European countries are overpopulated to the damn hilt. By[population density](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density). India has a lower population density than Israel. Pakistan lower than the UK, and Germany and just a tad above Italy’s. Nigeria is well below all of them. The Poms, Israelites and Krauts need to learn how to keep it in their pants, ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/45 "2016-02-21T03:04:11Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > No, it is my understanding the forests are being removed to make way for food growing, such as cattle and crops, not commercial-level logging/lumber. The problem is much of the rain forest, at least, is of poor soil, so after the forest is removed and/or burned, they get 1-2 years of decent crops before they have to move on to another spot. What’s left is a scrappy piece of land with no trees and lots of erosion. So how are activists going to solve this problem? It seems the country has no land left for farming and so are cutting down the trees for land for farming. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/46 "2016-02-21T03:52:16Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > So how are activists going to solve this problem? It seems the country has no land left for farming and so are cutting down the trees for land for farming. We aren’t talking about Jack and Susan Farmer trying to find a place for their cabbage patch here. These are large-scale export-orientated players in the multi-trillion dollar global beef market. They are looking for the absolute cheapest ranch land they can find on the planet, and the vast rainforest fits the bill-- at least for a few seasons until the soil is ruined. This isn’t a desperate search to find the last patch of land to feed a family with. It’s a chance for to make a quick buck by essentially strip mining cheap land to sell on the global market. Activists are trying to promote sustainable ranching, property rights for rainforest dwellers (their lack of rights is why the land is cheap), and conservative efforts. Basically, trying to make the land more expensive and thus less disposable. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/47 "2016-02-21T05:25:14Z")
I do think we’ll be able to support that many people. And individuals will reduce resource consumption, but it won’t be voluntary. Everything will cost more on a relative scale. Average wage owners in most countries won’t be able to afford a car, which won’t matter because self driving shared car services will be ubiquitous. Most people won’t be able to afford to eat real meat with every meal, but lab grown meat will be cheap. The average family won’t be able to afford a free standing house, only an apartment (this is already true in many places). And unless we get some major breakthrough, electricity will be much more expensive relatively, so running aircons all day long through the whole summer will also be something most people can’t afford. Oh and by 2050 I think most developed countries will have universal basic income. As more and more jobs get eliminated by automation its pretty much the only way to prevent society completely falling apart. Not everyone is smart or skilled enough to get one of the few jobs that is unlikely to ever be automated. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/48 "2016-02-21T20:09:12Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Not really a cite, but check out Wikipedia, which flags fuel/cooking wood and illegal logging. The land, in my experience, tends to become scrubland. African cities and villages tend to be surrounded by a broad swath of scrub caused by scavenging cooking fuel. > > [Deforestation by continent - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_by_region) Thanks. Most of the time, when a forest is clearcut and then abandoned, it reverts to forest (which is not to say that that justifies clearcutting - there are a lot of problems with replacing old-growth with new-growth.) But in marginal cases, the clearcutting of the forest can cause soil loss or even changes in the patterns of rainfall which make forest regrowth very slow or even impossible. I’m more familiar with East Africa, where regrowth hasn’t been a problem in areas that are protected from agriculture and firewood gathering. West Africa could easily have different attributes. [QUOTE=ramira] It is usual for small farmers to move in. [/QUOTE] This, though, would raise the question that if there’s demand for the land from small farmers, would they have cleared the land anyway, even in the absence of demand for the timber (as is the pattern we see in South America and Indonesia.) ---
**Author:** ![ProDentite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@ProDentite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProDentite)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/49 "2016-02-22T02:06:45Z")
The planet can easily support 9 billion humans. To put it into perspective, if you could somehow get all the people currently living on earth to stand shoulder to shoulder all of us could fit in the city of Los Angeles! The damage that is being done to our ecosystems is being done by a microscopic portion of the human population. It is the greed of those few that are damaging the earth. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204/50 "2016-02-22T02:21:43Z")
My understanding is the planet could support many more than 9 billion. Current problems are due to poor distribution of food and other items. On the other hand, the planet seemed not to have so much pollution and no climate change when the population was only 2 or 3 billion. So some sort of balance is needed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-earth-be-able-to-support-around-9-7-billion-people-in-2050/746204.md?page=2)