posted April 06, 2010 03:49 PM         

Texas contains a land area of 268,601 square miles.

There's 7,471,411,200 square feet in 268,601 square miles.

If every building lot was a very modest 50 feet wide by 60 feet deep, (3,000sq ft.)....enough for a very modest 1200 square foot home of 3 bedrooms and 2 baths with enough lot room left over for a very modest garden then...

you could build 2,490,470 homes in Texas. That's 2 million, 490 thousand, 470 homes IF

There were no commercial shops, no city buildings, no roads, no lakes, no rivers, no utility plants...and NO nothing else whatsoever.

Welcome to O'Bomberville.

"at the rate the population is expanding we will have another 7 billion by 2020"

posted April 06, 2010 06:25 PM         

i guess someone did not watch much if any of it?

posted April 06, 2010 07:08 PM         

The date 2020 is a typo? How about an additional 7 billion earthlings by 2050 being BUNK?

The current population is estimated by both the US census and the United Nations as being 6.8 billion. An additional 7 billion as you stated would bring the total just short of 14 billion.

posted April 06, 2010 08:34 PM         

if there were 4 billion (app) in 1980 (30 years ago) and there are 7 billion (app) now, that is nearly doubling our count in the last 30 years. presuming people keep breeding at approximately the same rate one would expect to see another nearly doubled total in the next 30-40 years...in fact 1.75 x 6.8 billion = ONLY 11.9 billion...

of course anything could happen to change that. sterilization by vaccine, disease, war, all keep the count down SOMEWHAT, but those have all been going on in the LAST 30 years as well...although sterilization has been mostly voluntary since the 60's. not taking into account the eugenic attempts of some people, which was more widespread than anyone would like to think.

i think the estimate that you could put everyone in a house and garden in texas was an attempt to show how NOT OVERPOPULATED we actually are in terms of space on earth.

but it's not just the space we take up that counts, is it? it's the food, trees, roads, factories, etc etc that we need to keep us alive as well, which takes in a much larger portion of the globe.

i don't much reckon on a master plan and houses built by central planners for everyone either. but neither do i want to see anyone who needs shelter going without...

bucky fuller pointed out that if we stopped spending the lion's share of our money on war and war machines, and if we recycled the military equipment no longer in use, we would never need to mine another ounce of metal!! quite a thought, isn't it?

for the record i didn't like his idea of putting cities in domes either, or of planning it all out for the plebs, not my style...but he did have some great ideas for making building superefficient compared to what we normally have today (30 years after he died!), and of using our resources in such a way that we could all live like billionaires. of course that would mean the BIG GUYS letting go of a) control and b) large amounts of money and c) the insistence on permanent war and permanent arms races...

posted April 06, 2010 08:39 PM         

quote:

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some WILL emigrate to space, but who knows how many yet?

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When do you propose this will occur?

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted April 06, 2010 08:41 PM         

do you think it unlikely?? do you see how fast the technology is advancing? do you think branson et al will continue giving orbit cruise tours to billionaires only?

posted April 07, 2010 04:52 AM         

quote:

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I think the estimate that you could put everyone in a house and garden in texas was an attempt to show how NOT OVERPOPULATED we actually are in terms of space on earth.

but it's not just the space we take up that counts, is it? it's the food, trees, roads, factories, etc etc that we need to keep us alive as well, which takes in a much larger portion of the globe.

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Well said Kat. I find this kind of one-dimensional "Overpopulation is a myth" stuff really very irritating. Soundbites. Nonsense.

We were overpopulated a long time ago. Read Thomas Malthus. Our crops are kept alive by fertilisers, the species diversity of our crops is narrowing. This is so dangerous. The reliance on oil for our crops is frightening. There will be a catastrophe. There already is a catastrophe. The fact that you can fit all those arms and legs in Texas means zilch.