Tipping point 2100

The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.

--Ghandi

It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – but the number of consumers and the scale and nature of their consumption. In 2018, 70 billion farmed animals will be killed by humans. These shocking figures do not include fish and other sea creatures whose deaths are so great they are only measured in tonnes.

The Earth has about 2 hectares of land per person for the sustainable growth of food and textiles for clothing, supplying wood and absorbing waste. The average American uses close to 10 hectares. These data alone suggest the Earth can support at most one-fifth of the present population of 7.5 billion people, at an American standard of living. The planet's projected population is expected to level off at 10-12 billion in 2100. This anticipated leveling off signals a harsh biological reality: Human population is being curtailed by the Earth’s carrying capacity, the population at which premature death by starvation and disease balances the birth rate.

We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.