The reality is, this planet has the ability to comfortably support 100 billion people with a first world standard of living. Period. And last I checked, there is 7 billion people on the planet.
What occurs, is that as countries grow faster than existing resources can acquire from the earth, whether it be crude oil or soybeans, prices will go up. So, there maybe a time when growth will temporarily subside and production begins to meet demand and prices will drop. And of course, it'll start all over again. This will continue to ebb and flow until countries like China, India, Russia, etc. catch up with the developed nations. Americans, in the future, need not worry about not being able to drive thier 3/4 ton Suburbans. If they aren't able to, it will be because environmentalist will, with federal help, intervene.
We should all look forward to the day when all the world achieves a first world standard of living instead of dreading the day when the US or the West no longer towers above everyone else.
It would be quite ironic if the Chinese solve the oil problem by perfecting ionic/plasma power plants, burning trash for power, since they aren’t hindered by environmentalists screaming “not in my backyard”. Solve the trash and power problem at once.
Or the Indians, via IIT.
Interesting factoids:
If you took EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the face of the Earth, and moved them to the land mass inside of Texas, we’d have no more density than the entire city of New York (all borroughs, not just Manhattan).
The rest of the US’ current farmland, and that of Alberta could feed all people. No need to convert a SINGLE ACRE of park, city, mountain, forest or non-farm space to farming.
And the water outflow of the Columbia River would provide enough fresh water for everyone multiple times over.
We could leave the rest of Canada, Alaska, everything from Mexico down to Tierra del Fuego, and the other continents and oceans completely untouched and empty.
The problem with the Earth isn’t its ability to sustain us; the problem is the distribution of the resources! We grow more than enough wheat and corn, heck we pay farmers not to grow it. If that could be grown, and sold on the open market then there wouldn’t be starvation.
But because some petty dictator (or crazy Frenchman, in the case of France) wants to protect their own “farmers” they ban the importation of our foodstuffs either outright or via use of tariffs to make it economically unfeasible.