Overpopulation of the Earth

According to the UN in the world, 795 million people are starving.

Despite the seemingly shrinking hunger from 1 billion over the past 25 years, as well as the questionable methodology of calculation, the 1.9 billion population of the world has increased over the same period, creating a smokescreen for realizing in the near future truly apocalyptic scenarios with the inability to provide all people Full nutrition.
Is it really so, and what (or who) is behind the problem of hunger?
I have long been interested in the issue of the notorious overpopulation of the Earth and related difficulties with providing people with food, when whole regions of the world periodically die out of hunger. Reasoning on this topic, I came to the conclusion that this is the same problem sucked from a finger as global warming, destruction of the ozone layer and other horror stories, behind which loom sinister shadows of beneficiaries.

To assess the scale of the problem a little (including the scale in the literal sense), you only need a calculator, a map of the Earth (at least paper, though computer) or a globe, and also a little common sense.
So, at the present time on the planet live 7.5 billion people - is it a lot or a little? And 10 billion? And what kind of people can the Earth support in principle?

These questions are not new, nevertheless, I wanted myself, despite the authorities, to understand and get my own result.

Take a map of the planet of the usual room format or, for example, open Google Earth, where in the "tools" there is a convenient ruler. To begin with, we conditionally allocate 1 sq. M to each person and on this, a sufficiently free quadrature for one standing, we place all the inhabitants of the Earth on an area of ​​10 thousand km² (square with a side of 100 km or 10 billion m²). They will fit exactly the most promising 10 billion people expected by the middle of the 21st century.

How will the marked area on the globe map look like? Elementary: in the form of a small rectangle in an infinitely huge unoccupied space. Rectangle, a size not much larger than a large average megalopolis, and much smaller than the largest Chinese city of Chongqing, covering an area of ​​82.3 thousand km². Actually, back in 1968 about the same wrote the English science fiction writer John Branner in the novel "Standing on Zanzibar" - in his overpopulated world of the first half of the 21st century, the entire population of the Earth could fit elbow to elbow on a single small island of Zanzibar.
I agree: 1 m² per person - nothing. Then we allocate to each of 20 m², which are quite suitable for less comfortable living, and we settle all, for example, in densely-built apartment houses, the number of storeys, for example, is 10 floors. We get: 10 thousand km² x 20 (m²) / 10 (et.) = 20 thousand km², i.e. The area on the map will increase only 2 times (rectangle 100 by 200 km), remaining at times smaller than the area of ​​Chongqing.
And now persuade me, since I began to apply certain parameters of comfortable living, to expand the conditional 10-storey, to place some kind of courtyards, car parks, roads, sidewalks and a bunch of administrative and domestic institutions necessary for the life of the metropolis, down to the treatment facilities. According to my estimates, the area will have to be increased approximately 10 times - this is a minimum, without excesses and various areas and wastelands. Result: 200 thousand km² - a rectangle of 200 per 1000 km, which turns our
conditional city into a kind of super-megalopolis, but exceeding in area, taking into account the relative low-rise, the largest city of the Earth is only 2.5 times. That is, even in 2050 the entire population of the planet can be accommodated in one, only very large, city!

I'm not sure how comfortable the total is in 20 m² of the city square for 1 person, but it is completely correlated, for example, with the Principality of Monaco, where there is only 50 m²
per person, or with such an island-megalopolis as Singapore, where for one person 125 m² with parks, squares, public gardens, office buildings and even a zoo, as well as other gigantic stores of "unnecessary things". So, my calculation, based on the minimum necessary needs for a full life in the city, is not so detached from reality.
Finally, we come to the conclusion of the reasoning.

Initial data:

• the total land area of ​​the Earth is almost 150 million km², of which about 70%, that is, about 100 million km², are suitable for agriculture and other types of products;
• All inhabitants of the Earth (with a reserve) can comfortably (without excesses) locate an area of ​​200 thousand km²;

Intermediate result:

• all earthlings are able to fit on an area of ​​the order of 0.2% of the part of the entire land surface suitable for life, which is at the level of statistical error, and in fact - beyond its edge. Even if you increase this figure by 10 times - up to 2 million km² with already quite decent 200 m² of city area per person, then in this case the super-city area will be only 2% of the total land area, i.е. Slightly above the level of statistical error. In the future, if you like, I will use this indicator.
  Further, we are easily convinced of the ability of the mother earth to feed both 50 and 100 billion people, for which we take, for example, a speculative indicator that for a full "food" (vegetables, fruits, fish, poultry and cattle) 10 hectare suitable for conventional (not super-hypertechnological) life of the earth.
  At the same time, we omit the natural question of the specialization of farms and the possible exchange of products between them, since not every 10 hundred parts can simultaneously
  breed fish, cattle and break a garden with a garden. In the same way as we omit completely possible attempts to unite plots in larger farms, for example, for sowing grain, which is meaningless to grow on 10 acres.
  But the most important: we consider only one parameter - the possibility for a person not only not to starve, but quite the contrary - to eat a diverse and environmentally friendly food, without using high-tech methods - from large machinery to chemicals. Fertilizers, and, especially,
  GMOs. Just take and make the average temperature in the hospital: 10 hundred and all, and do not try to rely on scientific calculations (on the Internet a lot of attempts at calculation, diverging on the orders), but believe me a word and my experience: not the most favorable for agriculture and Cattle breeding area, such as the suburbs, 10 acres per person uniquely form surpluses, suitable for exchange.
  So, in 1 km² - 10 thousand hectare, therefore, 1 km² is able to feed 1,000 people, it follows from the forehead that 10 billion people need an area of ​​10 million km2 to feed 10 billion people. Summarize the result of 2 million km² (from the calculation of 200 m² of city area per person) and get 12 million km², that is 12% of all suitable for living and using the Earth's area.

Further, we can calmly, within the reasonable (without compromising quality and environmental friendliness), to improve the efficiency of agriculture and livestock production, reducing the norm of one-hundred square meters, for example, twice, which is perfectly correct, and we will get a result of 7% From all the land suitable for living, employed to support the life of 10 billion people.
And if someone wants to reproach me for the lack of factories, steamboats, power stations and other candle factories, which also require space for their deployment, then I am ready to make concessions and allocate 3% for this interest, attention! - from arable land, although I understand that there is no need for it, 1% would be more than enough, and not necessarily on agricultural land. Nevertheless, I make concessions from the tendency to conservative calculations and childish love for whole and especially round figures to get, for example, the cherished 10% for 10 billion people. From all earth suitable for life.
Thus, we get the final result: the resources of the entire planet are quite enough to maintain the vigorous life of 100 billion people and without the need for irreversible damage to the Earth's ecology. At the same time, not only existing forest tracts will remain intact, but also extensive reserves with all their inhabitants, without any need to pretend to be a king of nature with total destruction of nature, as it has long and successfully done in Europe.
However, no 100 billion kings in the short term are not threatened by the Earth: according to the calculations of specialists taking into account the natural demographic correlation, by the year 2100, no more than 13.3 billion will live on Earth, and according to the most probable forecast - only 11.2 billion . human.

That, in fact, everything, further, make your own conclusions as to how diverse are the various exotic theories about the optimal population of the Earth and the need for its compulsory regulation. And do not forget the main thing: it is assumed that the authors of theories and its supporters do not usually fall under this regulation, but we are with you: simple readers of theories and their opponents. Especially, for some reason, if we are Russian, besides not the
most numerous, and not the fastest growing, but possessing the most extensive territories on the planet, which we have received by the incredible efforts of our ancestors.

And if people far away die of hunger from somewhere far away, the issue is not overpopulation, but in a monstrous paradigm that allows us to utilize millions of tons of food, because it is much more profitable than feeding the hungry.