September 22, 2018 • 24 mins
Thomas Malthus concluded that humanity is bound to outgrow Earth's carrying capacity. The prediction was based on humanity's exponential growth and the linear growth of the food supply -- but was he correct? Tune in to this classic episode to find out.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Chuck here, Good morning or good afternoon. Wherever
this finds you on your Saturday. I hope you're enjoying yourself,
and I have a nice selection for you. From July
two th eleven for this Saturday select was Malthis right
about carrying capacity? What is what is that all about?
You say, what am I talking about? Who is this? Malthis? Well,
(00:21):
all the answers are right here. It's a really interesting one.
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
(00:45):
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.
(01:06):
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
(01:28):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:13):
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
(02:36):
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
(02:57):
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
(03:19):
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
(03:42):
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
(04:04):
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,
(04:26):
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
(04:48):
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
(05:08):
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
(05:31):
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.
(05:53):
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
(06:17):
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
(06:40):
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,
(07:04):
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
(07:25):
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
(07:50):
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
(08:15):
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
(08:37):
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
(08:58):
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.
(09:19):
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
(09:40):
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
(10:01):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:51):
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
(11:15):
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
(11:38):
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
(12:01):
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
(12:26):
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
(12:46):
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
(13:08):
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
(13:31):
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.
(13:55):
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
(14:16):
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
(14:37):
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
(14:59):
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
(15:21):
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
(15:44):
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
(16:06):
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
(16:27):
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
(16:52):
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
(17:16):
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.
(17:36):
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
(17:58):
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
(18:20):
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
(18:44):
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
(19:05):
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
(19:25):
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
(19:48):
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,
(20:11):
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,
(20:35):
that's why skame a little bit that you should know why.
But J Clark and um powerful lobbies out there. What
(20:59):
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
(21:21):
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
(21:42):
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?
(22:03):
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.
(22:24):
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
(22:45):
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
(23:05):
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
(23:27):
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.
(23:50):
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
(24:13):
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
(24:36):
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.
Hi, everybody, Chuck here, Good morning or good afternoon. Wherever
this finds you on your Saturday. I hope you're enjoying yourself,
and I have a nice selection for you. From July
two th eleven for this Saturday select was Malthis right
about carrying capacity? What is what is that all about?
You say, what am I talking about? Who is this? Malthis? Well,
(00:21):
all the answers are right here. It's a really interesting one.
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
(00:45):
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.
(01:06):
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
(01:28):
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
(01:53):
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
(02:13):
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
(02:36):
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
(02:57):
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
(03:19):
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
(03:42):
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
(04:04):
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,
(04:26):
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
(04:48):
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
(05:08):
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
(05:31):
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.
(05:53):
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
(06:17):
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
(06:40):
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,
(07:04):
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
(07:25):
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
(07:50):
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
(08:15):
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
(08:37):
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
(08:58):
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.
(09:19):
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
(09:40):
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
(10:01):
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
(10:30):
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
(10:51):
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
(11:15):
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
(11:38):
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
(12:01):
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
(12:26):
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
(12:46):
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
(13:08):
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
(13:31):
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.
(13:55):
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
(14:16):
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
(14:37):
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
(14:59):
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
(15:21):
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
(15:44):
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
(16:06):
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
(16:27):
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
(16:52):
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
(17:16):
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.
(17:36):
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
(17:58):
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
(18:20):
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
(18:44):
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
(19:05):
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
(19:25):
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
(19:48):
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,
(20:11):
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,
(20:35):
that's why skame a little bit that you should know why.
But J Clark and um powerful lobbies out there. What
(20:59):
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
(21:21):
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
(21:42):
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?
(22:03):
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.
(22:24):
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
(22:45):
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
(23:05):
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
(23:27):
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.
(23:50):
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
(24:13):
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
(24:36):
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.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.