SYSK Selects: Was Malthus right about carrying capacity?

And uh and here's what I say. If you don't know what any of those words mean aside firm was right and about, then listen right now because you're about to learn something cool. July nine eleven was Malthis right about carrying capacity. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant sitting across from me. Um, and that makes the stuff you should know the podcast. There you go.

The only incarnation thus far is is there somebody fast forwarding through this part right now? Huh? Yes? So Chuck? Right? It is Chuck? Yes. Still have you noticed how often I say right, yeah, it's mind numbing. Plus someone will right in and say, do you know usually write all the time? Um, it sounds like I'm eating hard candy all the time. I know that's not the case. You've never eaten anything in here. I can attest to that. Uh. Yeah,

I'm overly celebratory. Okay, yes, chuck. Uh. As you know, I was a student of anthropology, still consider myself sure such um And I first came upon this term called carrying capacity when I was I took this life changing anthropology class all right, uh, and I don't remember the teacher's name anymore, but he was awesome. He introduced me to probably my favorite article or essay of all time. Uh, the worst mistake in the history of the human race,

right by Jared Diamond. Awesome stuff. Um any dustin Diamond by Mike Diamond, Okay, by Jared Diamond, the guy who wrote Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel and stuff. Um, that's required reading in my opinion. I just think you should that that essay not necessarily as books. Um. But this I was also introduced to carrying capacity. And this there's this really cool video he showed us to get the point across. And it's just a map of the

world right, and it's um it's there's red dots. It shows population growth and each red dot equals I think

a million people. And so it starts out in Africa, in uh Ethiopia, I believe, the cradle of humanity, and it starts there and all, you know, very slowly, there's like a it's time elapse obviously, so the years go by like that, and um uh, like the red dots start appearing very slowly, start moving out of Africa, spread in the Asia, to Europe, all that, and then um it starts to to pop up around North America and South America, and then all of a sudden you get

to the I think like the sixteenth century, maybe a little later the Industrial Revolution, and all of a sudden, this map just goes red and it's really jarring. It really gets to point across it like how quickly population has grown in the world and the impacts of it. You know, That's why he coupled this with caring capacity, because it's like, well, yeah, population and growth, who cares. Then you say, oh, well, there's a limit to the

amount of resources we have. Um. And that limit is called the carrying capacity of Earth, meaning how much Earth can sustain human life, and there's supposedly a point to it, right, Yeah, I got some stats. There's my intro. Take it from here. Here's a couple of stats, Josh, the United Nations population Division estimates, because five babies are born every second, and then you go like crying all that poop, the world is going to have seven billion people by years in

they think seven billion. Yeah, we're at six point nine two and change right now. Yeah, so I mean we're close. And um to to illustrate your point there about the red dots spreading like a disease, that is humans, um, fewer than a billion people in eighteen hundred, Yeah, it was like eight hundred million, eight hundred dude. That mean it seems like ancient history, but it ain't that long ago.

Three billion people in nineteen sixty and only six billion people as recently as nine Between nineteen fifty, chuck in, the global population doubled from two point five billion to five billion. That is crasas and behind this, that's what they call exponential growth. It's not just adding like a million people a year, slow and study you're adding a fixed number. It's you're adding you know, populations, doubling in

forty years. That's exponential growth. And that is the basis of what a guy named Thomas Robert Malthus uh in an eighteenth century English clergyman, predicted in his essay UM, an essay on the principle of population, basically saying human growth is exponential. We have a big problem because the growth of food is not. It's linear. It's right, and we're in trouble eventually. And he was fairly controversial at

the time. He was debated by a lot of people, one of which was this dude named William Godwin, and he had a theory called the perfectibility of society, which is basically, no did we we're humans and we no matter how much we grow, we will be able to counter that with advances in technology to allow us to grow. So they debated like crazy. Godwin subsequently was one of the first proponents of anarchism, and Malthus talked about eugenics

way back then before it was eugenics. He said, I could see something like this being possible, but he said it is probably not something we should do. And he also incidentally was the one of the first people to uh to support or popularize the theory, the economic theory of rent. Really yeah, well he was just all over

the place, wouldn't he. Well, but all kind of ties into population because eugenics tied into it because he was talking about controlling population and rent he theorized was only possible with a surplus of resources, um, which allows you to own a second place and rent it, I guess, or rent a tool or you know whatever people rented

back then. So what Mouths is talking about is generally classified as economics, yeah right, but it's also it stretches into all sorts of dirty, nasty little areas like greed um at college, population control, So eugenics, um, family planning,

abortion and fanticide, all sorts of stuff um. That has a lot of implications, far reaching implications, right, And so I didn't realize that there was somebody who was a contemporary of him that argued, like, no, humans will use technology to outstrip, to outpace this math Mathusian curse is what it's called. Right, Yeah, there was more than God when there was a few people too. I didn't realize that it was at the time, but I know that over the centuries people have been like Mouths. That was

a great idea. But you really missed the mark, and we're going to use you as an example of how badly somebody can can get it wrong, right, Because it wasn't just technology. There's another aspect of it called the demographic transition, which is basically as um, as we get better with this technology. Uh, one of the things we come up with this birth control um and while we're while our mortality rates are are lowering, so to our

fertility rates. Right, and we eventually come to this thing called the replacement rate, which is two point one children per household leads to zero population growth, right, and I think they set in Western Europe the number was one

point four in the late nineties. Like, some people are afraid that that Mauthis was correct at this point, and other people say that like in Europe and Asia they worry about the opposite because you know, they have the problem over there that they're not enough young people to take care of the retirees one day. Exactly, it's negative population growth. So who's right they do estimate? Um, who's

who they is? I don't know, but it just said researchers estimate that population is not gonna level off until mid century, at about nine billion. Well that's at best if that's if we do level off, we could continue to keep going the rate we're at now, the replacement rate at least to zero population growth, which is two point one. Right now, we're at a two point six worldwide and with Africa, UM skewing us the other way.

SUBSI in Africa has about a five point one fertility rate, which means for every household there's five point one children born. Does that point one child? He always feels so bad for him. It's a knee down, you know, on one leg. Um. But the uh, if we can get to zero population growth and we're not going to really have to deal with the Malthusian curse possibly ever, but we're not, then that's that's But that's one thing that's um that Mouths didn't account for is things like as society has become

more educated, fertility rates tend to drop dramatically. So that's that's another way to put it off too. So he was scoffed at, Like you said, there's a lot of people out there who think he was he missed the mark. But UM people have been doing a little bit of math lately and have figured out that UM it's entirely

possible that he's right, that somewhere down the line he's right. Yeah, And at the basis we should say, of mouths, this whole thing is a lack of food and water really, and we need air, food, water, shelter and all that stuff. But what he was mainly centered on was eventually the food growth will not match up with the population growth. And a billion people go hungry every day already. So so I might argue that that's already the case. So

let's talk about caring capacity. Chuck, Yeah, this is cool. Um. If we had not transitioned, which we have, which kind of proves the um positive positivists camp um that we can be technological. If we hadn't transitioned from hunter gatherer to agriculture UM, the caring capacity of Earth would have been reached out about a hundred million people a long time ago. Yes, because there's just so many animals running

around that we can kill. There's only so many berries that are going to occur in actually on the on the vine, right. But we did transition to agriculture UM before we hit the hundred million mark, possibly maybe not um farming, and we we began to use technology which

is growing crops to feed ourselves. And then we reached another point, right um, where we hit what was called the green revolution, remember that, Yeah, normal barolog um where there was a lot of people who are saying about a billion people are going to die because we are no longer We're not going to be able to provide

food for all the people here. Um, we've we've come up with great vaccines and all this other technology that's lowering the mortality rate, but that just means people are living longer and they need food longer over the over their lifespan. Right, so what are we gonna do? Norman Borlog comes along and says, you know what we're gonna doing exactly, tapioca pudding for everybody, for the elderly, and

a care bear in every garage. Now they'll go ahead with it with what he said because he was a genius. He said, we're gonna maximize the yield that we get out of arable land. We're not just gonna plant some seeds and be like, hope you grow. We're going to apply tons of pesticide, tons of fertilizer, and we're going to squeeze corn the size of your torso out of

every every plant. Right, Yeah, he wasn't some like awful mad That sound makes him sound like some awful mad scientists, though in the eyes of a lot of environmental let's he he well, I mean think about all the runoff, all the soil depletion. Also, didn't he also win a Nobel Prize? Sure? Yeah, he's credited with saving that billion people that were predicted to starve because he came in just in time because the Earth would have reached this

carring capacity for agriculture. So we've had at least two different events where we were able to leap forward through technology and avoid the Malthusian curse. Right, yes, So there are people out there who say, well, you know, we're we're we're going to avoid it again, but what will that be? Sure and come up with another one? So I'm sorry, Chuck, we would have hit the carring capacity a hundred million where we hunter gatherers, right man, what

are the predictions now? Well, they say, and this is where what I think is really interesting and completely sad, is that we have a potential carring capacity of two billion to forty billion. Were clearly past the two So one might ask how can it be that big of a range. And the answer is lifestyle. And here's a

very sad statu. If the entire earth live like middle class Americans, not the super rich, who you know, probably consume more energy and the like than your average human just regular middle class American folks consume about three point three times the subsistence level of food and two hundred and fifty times the subsistence level of water clean water. And that means the Earth, if we ever everyone was like us, the Earth could only support about two billion people.

So what's going on is of the Earth is consuming I don't have the percentage, but the other seventy of the earth is left with what's left, which is really really it's just a it's a uh disparity in the allocation of resources and what's consumed. So that's why it can be a range of two billion to forty billion because of the different lifestyles. If if everyone lives like there would be plenty for everyone and no one would

be starving. No, if everybody lived like we would all we would be like sorry, well the um Yeah, that's that's where the forty billion number comes in. I've seen thirty and i've seen forty on the high end for the carrying capacity, and that's where every square inch of arable land is being cultivated to its maximum yield. And all people live in high rises that are as high

as we can build them right now, right um. And we're mining UM asteroids for h for UM minerals and all that we're we're no longer going, we're no longer going to the Earth. We're going into outer space. Possibly. I don't think that that shouldn't have started about fifty

years ago, right um. But the that forty billion prediction is um based on the absolute minimum requirements, and everybody, forty billion people living on the planet UM, all using the minimum amount, which is four liters of water a year and about three ms of food a year, mostly grains.

And you can basically kiss meat goodbye because we need that land to grow our grains rather than grow grains to feed cows, which is another way that the West consumes resources more than more than its fair share, through a meat rich diet, which is you're not only eating the meat, you're eating the grains that the meat eight. Right,

So Chuck, let me ask you something. If you had if you went home and turned on your tap and there was hot water and it was flowing, and it was as much as you liked, right, Would you care how you were getting that? What do you mean how it was being delivered through my faucet? Yes? Uh, this

is trick question. No it's not. Let me rephrase. If you went home and I answering it wrong and turned on your hot water and there was as much hot water as you wanted and it was you knew it was coming from a sustainable source, would you care if it was sustainable? I guess not, But I'm kind of like a water saver, So your water saver. What if you knew you didn't really have to save water because

it was so sustainable, you wouldn't care. No one cares, as long as we have the luxuries that were afforded. You point it doesn't. You don't care if it came from burning bananappeals, No one cares. The problem is that the problem with the course that we're on apparently right now, is that we are UM using technology g not to get more from less, but to get more from more more cheaply. Right. Yeah, it's um. It's a uniquely human thing they call it in the article, which is pretty

much true. But technological advancement is in many ways leading to our habitat destruction. Ideally, at this point everyone would be on solar and the massive companies would be solar powered and all that kind of thing. And that's another great point is you know, you don't care where your electricity comes from. Do you care if it comes from a solar panel or wind? No, of course you don't.

You just want your electricity. So if we had invested, or if we could invest our technological advances into um getting what we have now from less from solar radiation or wind power, then we would be that that's true cutting edge technology, rather than you know, figuring out ways to deplete things faster, more cheaply, which is the way we're going. Yeah, like thinking of let's say, a more efficient oil driller or a more efficient way of getting

coal from a mountain, i e. Mountaintop removal. So they're using technology, but they're using in ways that are also destroying the habitat. And sustainability is all about finding the right balance in your habitat. So here's here's the conclusion I came through from reading this, right, the the argument from the positivists camp. I don't even think I'm using

that word correctly. But um, the people who are the Optimists camp, sure duh right are Um they're saying no mouths was incorrect because he failed to account for human ingenuity and as population grows, so to do the number of geniuses, and that's where innovation comes from. Right. Um. The I think the the Optimists are missing a point in their model, and that is greed. You can't really sway greed to to benefit human ecology, can you know? And you can't convince an entire population of people to

change their lifestyles, which is what it would take. That's what I'm saying you you can't because they don't care. But if you could deliver them that same amount of hot water, that same electricity and it was coming from a sustainable source, no one's going to fight that, right right right. It's having to get them to fight that fight to get the people who are controlling it to

change over. They're not going to do that. So there's that fatal flaw in that model that the gloom and Doom camp has over the um Optimist camp, and that there they don't account for for greed, have you ever seen who killed the electric car? No, I never did. I encourage people to see that. That's pretty scary. The e V one was, I mean, I don't know if you remember, but the e V one was. It was ready to go. There were TV commercials you can look up EV one commercial on YouTube and they were running

them on television. Electric electric cars are here, They're not coming, they are here, and boom, it was gone. Yeah, I'll check it out and I'll give you a few guesses as to why it left so quickly. And not only were they gone, dude, they literally gathered them all up and crushed them really like so many et Atari game cartridges exactly. Yeah, sad, but go go rented. It's cool. Yeah, that's why skame a little bit that you should know why. But J Clark and um powerful lobbies out there. What

else you got? I got nothing, man, This is this is a good one to chew on for people. I think I think so too. We just encourage people like we always do, just to you know, we're not saying, you know, quit your job and go like build solar panels for a living and live on a on a wind farm. You can do that. That'd be awesome, but little little things, little positive steps. They've saved a little water, save a little power. I disagree, man, what I don't

think the onus is on the people. I think the onus is on the the people who are misdirecting technological advancement. I'd say it's on both. I disagree. You don't think the onus is on the people to conserve. I think I think it. I think it is. I think we've put it on the people, but I don't think it's going to make enough of an impact. All right, I think it's on the policy makers. That's who I think

it's on. I was, I think I think it's on both. Um. Okay, well that's a debate to be played out on the Facebook page if you ask me. Right, yeah, man, we should set up before um. So, if you want to learn more, type in has the Earth reached its carrying capacity? Or Thomas Malthus M A L. T. H U S in the search bar how stuff works dot Com. It will bring up some pretty cool stuff. Well, then that

means it's time for listener mail. All right, Josh, you're gonna call this, uh how to make a my teenage son? Listen to your show from Portland, Oregon, Hi, guys and Jerry. When you have a teenager, you will quickly learn that you can't just tell them what to do and expect

them to do it. I remember those days. It's so frustrating because as a parent, you know that your kid will love something and get lots out of it, but you can't come right out and say it, or they will never ever try the thing you told them to try. For example, your podcast. I knew for a fact, like I know that it will reign in Portland, that my thirteen year old son Ethan would really love stuff. You should know because I love the podcast. I've turned other

people onto it and they love it. But I knew I had to be sneaky in order for my son to give it a try. Ethan is a fencer and at the time was also working on a research project about Renaissance jousting and tournaments. So one Saturday, I was working in the kitchen. I played how Nights Work Uh to catch his interest. Every time he came in the kitchen, I'd hit play. When he leave, I'd hit pause. I would figure he would just think, Man, these guys take

a long time to finish the Center. He would hang around the kitchen longer and longer each time, and I could tell I almost had him on the line like I was noodling. Although you would say that had him on the arm. Yeah, there's no line. When it was over, he said he already knew everything you talked about in the podcast, but I could tell he was intrigued. Then I hit him with the Scooby Doo Show and that

was it. You had another fan. Now he has downloaded the app for his iPod and listens each night as he's going to sleep. And that is Yeah, that's from Afton in a very sneaky mom thank you in Portland, Oregon. Thanks at That also kind of ties into the Colts and brainwashing episodes two, didn't Yeah, and she said um. When she replied, I asked her if I could read this, She said, you are, And she said, I guess he'll know my little trick now. But he'll get such a

kick out of being mentioned Ethan the Fencer. Yes, he will forget that. Yeah, and at least he can rest assured that she's not like putting anything in his soup to get him to do what she wants. She she uses more subtle tactics than that. Right, I wish you could put something in soup to make people listen to this. I'd be putting it in soup. Yeah, that's a good idea.

I'll put it in all soups. I'll tell you what, if you have any suggestions of what we can put in people's soup to get them to listen to stuff you should know and to get them to go give us a review on iTunes. Huh, yeah, that that helps us out. When you do that, Uh, you should send us an email and you should send it to a specific email dress. That is Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.