Who Needs Global Warming When We've Got Overpopulation?

I've mentioned before that not only do I think that we need to stop eating sushi immediately before we wipe out the world tuna population, but also that when the environment finally collapses under the weight of humanity, it won't be noticeable on land as much as it will be in the oceans.

A new study proclaims the obvious: humans are totally wiping out tuna. Not as much from the cans of chunk light tuna you get at the store (they're chicken anyway, right Jess?) but the sushi, in various forms that has become so popular in the United States and Europe. My own wife, Mrs. TAE, loves sushi and used to eat it regularly before her sometimes-treehugger husband cut that practice off. TAE admits on some occasions eating sushi as well, although I preferred Unagi Maki (eel).

In any case, the continued reports that our ever increasing uptake of tuna is far, far beyond the ability of tuna to repopulate (they don't breed until they are quite large, larger than the minimum size fisherman will catch) brings about what I think is a very real question: just how many humans can this planet hold?

Of course I am talking about rationing. Perhaps the planet can hold the current population of humans, but no more. If that is the case, then global tuna consumption needs to drop by a factor of 100 in order to restore the tuna population to the oceans. That means that we all only get sushi about twice a year, and I mean all of us. Those of you who don't eat sushi get to continue not eating sushi. Once the tuna population has recovered, we can only increase our global sushi intake to about 2% of what it currently is. I'm not joking. That's how lopsided our tuna intake has become. Similarly, canned tuna sales need to basically get cut off for about 5 years, at which point we can buy 5% of current canned tuna consumption.
But if we aren't getting our protein from tuna, where will we get it? Well, actually we need to basically wipe out the world's cattle population to eliminate the huge amounts of greenhouse gas that are being spewed out of their butts into the atmosphere. That means that beef is off the menu. What about pork? Well pig feces is dumped into lagoons that belch out huge amounts of carbon dioxide and therefore the pork must go too. Besides, pigs were meant to be feralwild, right?
I could go on, and fully intended to, but I realized my point is being made: meat harvesting/livestock production has allowed our species to overpopulate the earth while simultaneously stabbing it with a knife.

Okay I have to take a deep breath because I'm about to write something controversial and offensive: most of you need to die. Back in 1804, before much of the Industrial Revolution had taken effect on the world's population, the global population was estimated at 1 billion people. It is believed that by and large, this population was a stable, sustainable population.
The current world population is estimated at 6.7 billion people. But this isn't simply a 7 fold increase in resource use. Humans of 2009 use way more resources per person than their ancestors 200 years ago. Not only did my ancestors of long ago not have access to bluefin tuna steaks, but they didn't have huge boats to ship them, ice-cold freezers to store them, or refrigerated trucks to ship them. I may get 100 calories of energy from a small morsel bluefin tuna and my 1804 ancestor may have gotten 100 calories from a small morsel of deer or salmon. But the amount of total energy required for me to enjoy my 100 calories is astronomically higher than the amount of energy required to get my ancestor his 100 calories.
So you have this situation where although our population is 7 times bigger, the resource consumption is something like 70 times bigger.

So if you go on the (huge) assumption that a single human uses 7o times the resources per calorie of someone back in 1804, and 1804's world population was basically sustainable, then you end up with the figure that the sustainable world population of today is around 100 million. That's roughly 1/3rd the population of the United States. So 69/70ths of us must die for the Earth to survive.

...or must we? Here's a much better alternative: Build 69 gigantic spacecraft capable of holding 100 million people each, then round us all up and randomly (except for rich people of course, they get to choose) put us in each of the spacecraft (with the remaining 100 million left here on Earth). Send each spacecraft (after putting the 100 million inhabitants in cryogenic sleep, obviously) to a distant, habitable planet, to build their own society there. Each spacecraft, and Earth, are given strict rules that their rate of reproduction must never allow their total population to exceed 100 million.

It's foolproof!


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