Monday, January 25, 2016

Human Carrying Capacity (S 35)

The first section of this selection talks about Easter Island, an island who's population has changed drastically over time due to environmental and political changes. Easter Island is believed to be an accurate representation of how our planet as whole goes through population changes. In the second part of this selection the author talks about the human carry capacity of the earth. Joel Cohen argues that there are too many variables in today's world for their to be an exact number, at which we exceed carry capacity. With so many variables involving how different populations act and live around the world, as well as how each populations environment reacts to certain situations, Joel says we can only estimate what the human carry capacity is. He also discusses the different concepts of equilibrium, keying on passive equilibrium in the second part of the selection.

Carrying capacity or human carrying capacity is the maximum amount of humans that our world can maintain successfully. Earth does not have one single number that is our maximum human carrying capacity. With so many different cultures around the world, all acting so differently (different incomes, different land, different birth rates) it makes this number very hard to predict. Because there are so many variables contributing to the carrying capacity, this estimated number is also constantly changing.

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