Posted by
Crescen7(Regis Matejcik) on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:47:20 PM
How big is the world ?
How crowded is the world ?
Overpopulation, pollution, carbon emissions, global warming; are we killing our planet ?
We, as humans are somewhat self-centered by nature. Additionally, it seems we're all biased by our immediate observations. That is we tend to look at our surrounding environment, and imagine the balance of the world looks much the same way. This is perhaps reinforced by the fact that we humans often move about from place "A" to place "B" with both "A" and "B" looking very much alike.
For example, one can board a plane or begin a drive in Austin Texas, and travel 1,500 miles to Cleveland Ohio, and observe much the same surroundings. That is, at both locations one would see a metropolitan area consisting of single family homes, businesses, shopping centers, restaurants, streets, traffic lights, etc. etc. One would also see people living and moving about in roughly the same density. That is, about the same number of people per square mile.
That density changes somewhat from city to city. New York, for example is characterized by a quite dense population, while Kansas City is much less dense by comparison. Yet, in either example one would observe several thousand people per each square mile of area. We tend to develop the perception that the worlds surface is rather uniformly populated with several thousand people per square mile.
This common perception can be illustrated by asking this theoretical, yet simple question:
If all the worlds population stood shoulder to shoulder, heal to toe (in crowded concert style) how big an area would it take to hold all the people of the world ?
The answers most often heard are; North America, China, half the U.S., or some other significantly large land mass. When the answer is presented most people are stunned. Many question it's truth, even when confronted with the rather simple mathematical proof. The answer goes like this:
Assume every person stands in a 1.5' x 2' square. This can be done quite comfortably. This allocates 3 square feet per person. Assume there are 6.75 billion people in the world - this is the estimated population for January 1, 2009. One can determine the requisite number of square feet by simply multiplying 6.75 billion by 3. Once that calculation is complete it's useful to convert the number to acres by dividing by 43,560. Or dividing by 5,280
2 to get square miles. Either way one can then consult a common variety almanac to get the area of a particular country, state, county, or city.
Since this writer resides in Travis County Texas, an average sized Texas county, that seemed like a good place to start. As it turns out, the entire population of the world can fit into about 71% of Travis County. The calculations are:
-->
|
|
|
|
| World Population |
6,750,000,000 |
|
| Number of sf to stand in |
3 |
sf |
|
| World pop stands in |
20,250,000,000 |
sf |
|
(divide to get sq. miles)
|
27,878,400 |
|
|
| Conversion to Sq. Miles |
726 |
sq miles |
|
|
|
|
|
| Travis County TX total area |
1,022 |
sq miles |
|
|
|
|
|
| World Population fits in |
0.711 |
pct. |
of Travis County Texas |
There, in 3 simple calculations, and two simple fact references (world population and area of Travis County) there is irrefutable evidence - the world is far from overcrowded.
Of course, there are those that will argue that this is purely theoretical, and that we could never really put that many people in Travis County. This is probably true, but one must also remember that this is all on one level. Using multi-level structures to hold people is not even considered. In any event the point is that the common perception is that the worlds population could cover large swaths of area, occupying large countries or even continents; and that common perception is very, very wrong.