I was in mechanical engineering school in 1972 when the Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth.” I happened to be studying system dynamics and differential equations at the time the book was published and was intrigued by their modeling techniques. The book basically said the same thing — that the earth has a carrying capacity for human life and things could go awry quickly leading to population collapse.
It just makes sense doesn’t it? Lifeboats can successfully and practically hold only so many people can’t they?
Yes, but that carrying capacity is enhanced by technologies and methods unknown at the time of a particular calculation, so is impossible to compute, as the data isn’t static.
Modern science has increased our ability to raise food far above the needs of the 8 billion that live at this time. Any famine or hunger nowadays are due to human war and criminal activity. We grow enough to feed everyone.
One could even argue the coming warming (of which the potential benefits never seem to be spoken of) of the Northern latitudes will bring vast ranges of Taiga in Canada, Alaska and Siberia under the farmer’s plow.
This is the basic premise. It is a false premise.
Humans have the unique ability to increase the carrying capacity of the earth.
Humans also have the unique ability to expand their population and life to other places outside of the earth, and to access resources outside of the earth.
It is highly likely the human ability to unlock carbon from where it has been sequestered in the earth's crust,and to increase the amount of fixed nitrogen in the earth's ecosystem, have already increased the carrying capacity of the earth significantly.
The "carrying capacity" of the earth is not a constant.
We never should have sent food to starving countries. The law of nature and God says, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Countries that couldn’t even dig a well, make mosquito nets, or grow and harvest food, deserve to go extinct.