Estimate like "The world collectively overshot the Earth's capacity to support all of us..." are laughably unscientific bullshit. The World Wildlife Fund may claim it, but that doesn't make it so. There are about a billion reasons why you can't make such a precise estimate about such a murky thing as "The earth's ability to support us." I bet if you break down whatever math they actually used to arrive at the estimate you'd find them making several assumptions which A) no longer hold true or B) will no hold true for much longer.
About the best that actual science can tell us is "If we don't clean up our act bad shit is going to happen. And it may already be too late."
After posting that I was thinking about that precise date/number could have been calculated... I can think of several things going for and against it. In the end you're probably right that a precise year can't be guessed. But I'm pretty certain that there is the data and the math right now to calculate the basic resources (energy/water/food) needed to support 6 billion using the bare minimum as, say, estimated by WHO. There are also books of numbers as far as water/energy/tons of food used and produced per year. As far as things changing to affect the calculations, that's true, I'm not any more hopeful wondering which way they will change. Growing urbanization and populations as well as climate unpredictability and its effects on food production don't make me hopeful in any way, whatever the math.
In terms of raw numbers we are probably fine. We are not close to fully utilizing the globe's resources (The Oceans being the primary area where we're utilizing very little of what's there. That's one of the reasons we need to stop dumping shit into them.) We're not going to run out of water. Fresh water, maybe, but salt can easily be removed. Humans are amazingly resourceful animals. I think that if we can stop population growth and stop wasting resources on shit like war and private vehicles we could be okay. The problem is that we're not going to. We're going to continue on our current course until we are forced to stop. And when we are forced to stop it's not going to be a pretty scene. But humanity will survive.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environmentsushil_yadavJanuary 19 2007, 17:07:29 UTC
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct
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About the best that actual science can tell us is "If we don't clean up our act bad shit is going to happen. And it may already be too late."
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Sigh. What can I say. I think we're fucked.
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The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct ( ... )
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