The next thing I'm working on is modeling how population might change if the majority of what we consume is not easily used. We already know that the one Earth of ecological production each year, which we are biologically configured to use, is a diminishing part of our consumption. By the time we are consuming 2 Earths per year, only half will be healthy for us and the planet. Beyond that, what we consume may actually kill us.

In this graph, Scenario 1 (in red) is a projection of population right up to the point where we are consuming all of the Earth's ecological resources, at which point it will most likely crash. Scenario 2 (the green line) is the logistic curve approaching the maximum population associated with 2 Earths per year of consumption.

Test (in purple) is a condition where population declines as consumption increases beyond 2 Earths. This is explained in my model as the separation of consumption into two parts: useful and waste, where the "waste" part acts as a decrease in consumption, thus impacting population much as our own consumption has reduced that of other species.

Again, this idea is still in development, and I'll write more about it later.

 

 

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