According to Matthew Yglesias ('One Billion Americans') , writing in New York magazine::
"The United States is not “full.” In fact, it is empty. Right now, the country has about 93 people per square mile. Many, many countries are far denser than this, and not just city-states like Singapore (more than 20,000 per square mile) or small island nations like Malta (3,913 per square mile). South Korea has 1,337 people per square mile, and Belgium has 976. If you tripled the population of the United States, adding the new Americans only to the Lower 48 and leaving Alaska and Hawaii intact and unchanged, the main part of America would be only about as dense as France and less than half as dense as Germany.
Adding: "When America faced down Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, we were the big dog. We had more people, more wealth, and more industrial capacity. (Back in 1938, the gross domestic product of the U.S. alone was larger than that of Germany, Japan, and Italy combined.) But against China, we are the little dog: There are more than 1 billion of them to about 330 million of us. Chinese people don’t need to become as rich as Americans for China’s overall economy to outweigh ours."
The point eluding this numbskull is that supporting a massive population isn't simply based on finding the space in which to squeeze it. You also need to consider the support systems, for growing enough food to feed that increased population - efficiently and consistently each day, as well as the water (clean water) to meet basic needs. Oh and not to mention an energy and transportation infrastructure. And we aren't even going to get into the number of hospitals (or even urgent care centers) and qualified medical specialists that'd be required to serve all their medical needs.
It is such limits that factor into the carrying capacity, or rather the bio-support capacity of the human populace on this planet. Even now, over 1 billion people around the world live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita. One notable ‘State of the World’ report (2000, pp. 46-47), warned that the ever increasing water deficits will likely spark “water wars” by 2025.
But this geopolitical justification of added U.S. numbers by Yglesias is not new. It actually goes back to Ben J. Wattenberg's (1985) book, The Birth Dearth, in which he argued that American women are under-reproducing and "the resulting missing babies translate into missing producers and consumers, soldiers and sailors, mothers and fathers". In his message of stark insanity, he warned that unless American women "win the demographic numbers battle" against the black and brown peoples of the planet, we will "be faced with a world where the U.S. will no longer be the most important country in the world". In the same book, he designated black Americans to be more invested in reproducing for soldiers. Meanwhile, white citizens were designated as consumers.
That this execrable book got any attention at all is a wonder, but its memes are still with us, as when assorted pundits proclaim we need to 'make more babies' to support those on Social Security. Never responding as to how those supporting workers will be supported themselves, This elicits the other problem with Yglesias' codswallop: Where are the jobs going to come from to support 660 million more people in the U.S.? This is especially given that A.I. systems and mechanization, automation are set to expunge millions of existing jobs - across all lines of work, except perhaps nursing homes, medical assistants - in the next 20 years. See e.g.
The logical takeaway is that nearly all those 670 million more 'souls' Yglesias wants added to the U.S. population will be surplus workers. Existing just in case those who have jobs die, or move to other nations. But still leaving a real unemployment (U 3) rate of nearly always 100%. Is there enough unemployment insurance to cover these hundreds of millions of people even for a month? What about UBI, or universal basic income, maybe that will be Yglesias' choice to support them?
But again, where will the support money come from? Never fear, Yglesias has a "solution"! The millions added as adults can become "childcare providers" for the soon- to- be- gestated more millions of babies! (Doesn't he believe any women will still want abortions?) The market, for sure, will find a way to occupy all those additional hundreds of millions, so not to worry!
Merely depending on "markets" or technology to save the day is not good thinking, not even the most minimal critical thinking. And at no point does this deluded author indicate who will pay those millions of "childcare providers" displaced by automation. Let us also note, in the interest of honesty, Yglesias admits he himself has only one child and lives in a historic townhome in DC. Nothing like the cramped, 2-room, 500 sq. foot hidey-holes in assorted 45 -story high rises he has planned for the lucky upper 1 % of his added millions. (The rest left to live in tents or makeshift huts.)
Indeed, Yglesias' daft concept is predicated on capitalist style economic growth which is not sustainable for a world with 7.5 billion people, far less 8 billion. Or a U.S. with 330 million. Also not surprising here is that Yglesias, in his MJ candy -induced phantasmagoria, almost completely ignores the environmental repercussions of tripling the American population. He hasn't even processed or indicated how the septillion tons of human shit added yearly will be processed by existing systems, given these are not even properly maintained. This is leaving out the dearth of sufficient water to run all those toilets. Ah, but perhaps his solution is just to go back to outhouses.
The key quantifier here is not how much "empty space" a nation or region has, but the carrying capacity of the planet or its ability to support 'x' numbers of resource-consuming humans. Isaac Asimov was among the first to have shown how it is computed:
Carrying capacity =
(usable land-water resource base providing water + food + fuel) / (individual food, fuel + water requirement)
If the numerator is » 11.4 x 10 9 hectares of usable aggregate equivalent land-water resource base and if 6 hectares is the ideal "mean individual requirement" over a lifetime (e.g. meet all basic needs and have a few private luxuries) , that means:
CC = (11.4 x 10 9 hectares) / 6 hectares/person » 2 billion
The U.S. at a hypothetical "1 billion" as Yglesias postulates, would already represent HALF of the planet's carrying capacity, which is preposterous. The fact - the reality - is that we're already approaching the threshold at which there will simply be too many people to feed given existing resources: water, arable soil, fertilizers etc.. The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below, representing an overshoot of resources, puts this into perspective;
The interpretation of the graph (upward) is straightforward. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate. This means that if planet Earth has an excess population - over carrying capacity - that will be hostage to the limited resources. With ferocious competition for those limited resources - especially water - one can almost certainly forecast mass destitution, famine and death.
Here are sobering facts for Yglesias and his population optimists to process:
- Every day humans permanently remove 3.2 billion gallons more water from aquifers than nature can't replace. If "human ingenuity" was as great as advertised it would be able to compensate for the losses nature is unable to. But it can't! Just multiply world population by per capita consumption and you can estimate levels of resource depletion and waste generation.
- U.S. consumption of energy grows every day despite half-hearted efforts to conserve it. This is important because each energy use is accompanied by entropy or degradation in the quality of energy remaining which also impacts our environment.
- To accommodate growth we pave over an area equal to the state of Delaware every year.
Common sense ought to inform one that this is unsustainable and can't go on indefinitely. Hell, we can barely - at current levels of funding and resources- pave enough highways for 100 million people, far less 600 + million more. And for those wide open spaces Yglesias wants to populate, where will the infrastructure come from to support the added millions to live there? We haven't even repaired our existing crumbling infrastructure - including aging sewer lines and water pipes, bridges, electrical power grids etc. and Yglesias wants to add hundreds of millions more users? Idiotic!
The Cornucopians get it wrong because they don't see population growth as the toxin it is, and can't put 2 plus 2 together to see how it leads to the Malthusian nightmare. A nightmare playing out now before their eyes if they'd only look. But it's far easier to write airy fairy nonsense to get the gullible capitalist types to buy in.
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