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CARRYING CAPACITY-- THE EARTH'S CARRYING CAPACITY --SOME RELATED REVIEWS AND ANALYSES Bruce Sundquist bsundquist1@alltel.netGo to descriptive links to all documents on this website(Directly below are the links to all of these documents by title only.) The initial web site contained a collection of five literature reviews done to understandthe global magnitude of the loss and degradation of some of the earth's key life-supportsystems. These reviews were later used in an analysis of the sustainability ofthe global outputs of food, wood and freshwater, and also to compile a lot ofland area and aquatic area data. That motivated an analysis of whatthe earth's carrying capacity is, based purely on the productivity of thebottom of the food chain - the process of photosynthesis (neglecting otherconstraints such as fossil fuels, living space, etc.) You might benefit from first looking over the file"Highlights of this Website." That file briefly describes what each ofthe 20 major documents on this website is about. It also points out someof the more important conclusions of the analyses done in that document. This information may help you decide if any given document is likely to beuseful for whatever purposes you had in mind. Topsoil Loss andDegradation - Causes, Effects and Implications: A Global Perspective Forest Lands Degradation: A Global Perspective Grazing Lands Degradation: A Global Perspective Irrigated Lands Degradation: A Global Perspective Fishery Degradation: A Global Perspective Sustainabilityof the World's Outputs of Food, Wood and Freshwater for Human Consumption The Food Crisis -Some Solutions for a World with Fewer Options for Satisfying Increasing Demands Terra Preta -- An Inexpensive, if notProfitable, Solution to the Problems of Global Warming and Developing World Hunger HumanCo-Option of Net Primary Production - The Photosynthetic Limits to GlobalCarrying Capacity Land Area Data andAquatic Area Data - A Compilation Below are 12 fairly substantial analyses related to thebroader issue of Mankind's efforts to deal with the limits that the lands and theseas impose on human numbers in an age of exploding mobilities of all componentsof economic activity -- and efforts to deal with these limits in a bipolar globaleconomy. The Controversy over U.S. Support for InternationalFamily Planning: An Analysis Could Family Planning Cure Terrorism? The Muslim World's Changing Views Toward Family Planning and Contraception Quinacrine Sterilization: The Controversy and the Potential Strategies for Funding Family Planning, Maternal Health Care and Battles Against HIV/ AIDS in Developing Nations as Options Expand, Political Environments Shift and Needs Grow: A Critique Globalization -- The Convergence Issue Globalization -- The Insourcing-Outsourcing Issue Globalization -- A Review of theLiterature The InformalEconomy of the Developing World: Context, Prognosis, and a BroaderPerspective Privatization of theWorld's Water Supplies and Other Public Utilities and Infrastructure Also, you will find two analysesof issues unrelated to those above. They are aimed at solving the health carecrisis in a more bi-partisan manner than those that we normally encounter, i.e. byseeking ways of eliminating the massive inefficiencies that have crept into thesystem over the years. Inefficiencies in the Health CareIndustry -- Identifying and Fixing Them Large Scale Computerization -- The Cure for the HealthCare Crisis Even though the initial five documents in this web sitelimited themselves to categorizedcompilations of key facts and figures and brief summaries of arguments andanalyses, the total size of these five initial documents plus all the morerecent additions to this website has grown to be equivalent to over 1000 pages of 8.5x11single-spaced hardcopy. Yet they cover only a small fraction of the globalliterature on these issues. They are big enough to be quite useful, but you,the user, should keep the scope limitations of this site in mind. There are nographics in this website since it is assumed that the site visitor isprimarily interested in collecting referenced information as rapidly aspossible.The above-mentioned five reviewdocuments contain a huge amount of data on areas of various types of land andaquatic habitats (e.g. the area of Russia's boreal forests, the amount ofrangeland in the world, the area of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, the amountof Latin American tropical rainforests converted to grazing land, the amount ofdesert land in China, the total area of the world's lakes). Those who make use of this sort of data may find itconvenient to have all this data collected in one place rather than having tosearch for it throughout the five above-mentioned documents. If you find thissort of data useful, you can simply click on the link "Land Area Data andAquatic Area Data -- A Compilation" that you will find below.As another application of the above, a document has been preparedthat presents the case for greater U.S. support for international familyplanning. As part of that document, an Appendix A ("Overpopulation inDeveloping Nations . . .") has been prepared thatuses the above five literature reviews to present the case for the contentionthat the developing world is over-populated."Globalization: The Convergence Issue" was added in January of 2003 topoint up the growing interconnectedness of the developed- and developing worlds-- and the implications thereof.Titles and sizes of (and links to) the documents listedabove are given below (Last updated 9/6/08):INDEX OF COMPONENT DOCUMENTS: as of 9/07/08Topsoil Loss and Degradation -- Causes, Effects, and Implications: A Global Perspective Edition 7, July 2007 (2709 KB as 17 WORD 2000 files; 1520 KB as 17 *.html files)Forest Land Degradation -- A Global PerspectiveEdition 6, July 2007 (1924 KB as 12 WORD 2000 files; 915 KB as 12 *.html files)Grazing Lands Degradation -- A Global PerspectiveEdition 6, July 2007 (1431 KB as 9 WORD 2000 files; 807 KB as 9 *.html files)Irrigated Lands Degradation -- A Global PerspectiveEdition 5, July 2007 ( 1191 KB as 10 WORD 2000 files; 655 KB as 10 *.html files)Fishery Degradation -- A Global Perspective Edition 8, July 2007 (1735 KB as 13 WORD 2000 files; 919 KB as 13 *.html files)Total: 8990 KB as 61 WORD 2000 files; 4816 KB as 61 *.html files)Sustainability of the World's Outputs of Food, Wood and Freshwater for Human ConsumptionEdition 1, March 2008 (1480 KB as 6 WORD 2000 files; 908 KB as 6 *.htmlfiles) The Food Crisis -- Some Solutions for a World with Fewer Options for Satisfying Increasing Demands Edition 2, September 2008 (170 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file; 134 KB as 1 *.html file)Terra Preta -- An Inexpensive, if not Profitable, Solution to the Problems ofGlobal Warming and Developing World Hunger Edition 1, September 2008 (84 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file; 60 KB as 1 *.html file)Human Co-Option of Net Primary Production - ThePhotosynthetic Limits to Global Carrying Capacity Edition 2, April 2008 (89 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file; 56 KB as 1 *.html file)Land Area Data and Aquatic Area Data -- A Compilation Edition 1, March 2004 (976 KB as 10 WORD 2000 files; 441 KB as 10 *.html files)The Controversy over U.S. Support for International Family Planning -- An Analysis Edition 8, April 2008 (367 KB as 3 WORD 2000 files; 235 KB as 3 *.html files) Could Family Planning Cure Terrorism?Edition 7, March 2008 (337 KB as one WORD 2000 file: 187 KB as 1 *.html file)The Muslim World's Changing Views Toward Family Planning and Contraception and Contraception Edition 2, March 2008 (71 KB as one WORD 2000 File: 29 KB as 1 *.html file)Quinacrine Sterilization: The Controversy and the Potential Edition 1, January 2007 (113 KB as one WORD 2000 file: 58 KB as 1 *.html file)Strategies for Funding Family Planning, Maternal Health Care, and Battles Against HIV/ AIDS in Developing Nations as Options Expand, Political Environments Shift andNeeds Grow: A Critique Edition 4, August 2007 (248 KB as 2 WORD 2000 files: 159 KB as 2 *.html files)Globalization: The Convergence Issue Edition 16, April 2008 (1088 KB as 5 WORD 2000 files: 688 KB as 5 *.html files)Globalization: A Review of the Literature Edition 3, May 2008 (1490 KB as 11 WORD 2000 files: 842 KB as 11 *.html files)Globalization: The Outsourcing - Insourcing Issue Edition 2, June 2006 (77 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file: 35 KB as 1 *.html file)The Informal Economy of the Developing World: The Context, the Prognosis, and a Broader PerspectiveEdition 1, MARCH 2008 (231 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file: 174 KB as 1 *.html file)Privatization of the World's Water Supplies and Other Public Utilities and InfrastructureEdition 1, APRIL 2008 (67 KB as 1 WORD 2000 file: 36 KB as 1 *.html file)Inefficiencies in the U.S. Health Care System -- Identifying and Fixing Them Edition 3, August 2004 (87 KB) (No particular relevance to other topics covered by this web site) Large-Scale Computerization --the Cure for the Health Care Crisis Edition 4, May 2006 (86 KB) (Chapter 3 of the above document) NOTE: You may prefer to examine one or more ofthe above documents as word processing documents on your own computer. You canrequest these from the author by filling in the form below and submitting it.You will receive the documents that you requested as word processing documentssent by Email attached files. This service is free. I am often asked about the origin of this websiteand about the author. To learn more about either of these, or about plans toexpand on this web site click on About this website andits author. Website Background: The backgroundfor all files of this website was borrowed from the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService. If you decide to use it on your website you should acknowledgethem as the source.  since 01/04/03 Abstract of "The Controversy over USSupport for International Family Planning -- An Analysis": The growing contentiousness over U.S.support for international family planning (IFP) is traced to the broadening ofthe issue to include increased educational and economic opportunities for womenin developing nations and growing concerns that over-population and excessivepopulation growth rates are at the roots of the growing social, economic,political, and military instabilities in the developing world. Since theseconcerns tend to promote increased access to abortion and contraception,supporting IFP has grown less bipartisan and more contentious. Arguments used byopponents of IFP are analyzed. The economics of IFP are examined and the case ismade that just the financial benefits of IFP outweigh the costs by orders ofmagnitude – for both the developed world and the developing world. Much of thewretchedness found in developing nations can be traced to the needs for capital(over $1.0 trillion/ year) required by population growth. The conversion oflabor-intensive agriculture to capital-intensive agriculture in developingnations adds significantly to population-driven migrations to marginal lands andurban slums. This problem can also be traced to capital deficiencies caused bypopulation growth. This problem also adds to the growing social, economic,political and military instabilities of the developing world.Abstract of "Globalization: The Convergence Issue": No significant non-mobile factors exist that could prevent convergence of theeconomies of the developed and developing worlds and the correspondingelimination of high labor price differentials. Although some global convergence of labor prices has occurred, the bulkof this convergence must result from some sort of rapid, instability-relatedprocess. The developing world’sextreme shortages of financial capital, caused largely by high population growthrates, and limitations of the world’s natural capital require that laborprices converge close to those of the current developing world. Damage controloptions exist but are limited, difficult, and require a time frame of decades.Abstract of "Inefficiencies in The U.S. Health CareIndustry -- Identifying and Fixing them":Despite health care’s huge and everincreasing bite out of the U.S. GDP, stop-gap, increasingly inefficient, andlargely symptomatic measures have characterized the bulk of the nation’sresponse. Eventually the desperation and anger over the failure to adequatelyaddress these cost containment problems at both the private and governmentlevels are likely to force serious examinations of the fundamental roots of theproblem. This paper is intended as preparation for that eventuality. The twomost fundamental causes of the problem are ever-increasing, self-perpetuating,subsidies and impositions of insurers between buyers and sellers. These causesseem impossible to correct. But by addressing the largest (and most rapidlygrowing) inefficiencies in the health care system, four other fundamentalapproaches appear to offer significant potentials for major reductions in healthcare costs of roughly 50%. These approaches also offer significant potentialsfor improvements in health care quality in addition to collateral benefits.These approaches are: Decreasing the direct labor component of health care via computerization of its massive, complex information flow/ analysis system, Increasing direct capital utilization efficiencies by reducing the influence of the less-than-objective economic analyses, and possibly the social values, that have produced huge and growing direct capital utilization inefficiencies, Reducing prescription drug prices by any of several systems of pricing that mimic free-market conditions – conditions that the present pricing system lacks, and Reducing government support for questionable end-of-life health care borne of less-than-objective medical, personal and religion-based analyses.Opportunities (1) and (2) have been blocked by the lack ofincremental means of achieving these ends. Prescription drug prices are farabove their free-market values because of non-addressable influences ofsubsidies and health insurance. Questionable end-of-life health care is alsolargely a product of these two influences. Thus carefully designed proxies forfree-market conditions offer perhaps the only realistic approach to these twoproblems. Table 1 summarizes these four approaches to US health-care-costcontainment, lists the barriers facing each, recommends solutions to thesebarriers, and estimates potential cost savings.Abstract of "Large-Scale Computerization -- The Cure forthe Health-Care Crisis"Large-scale computerization of information flow-, analysis-, and storageoperations in the US health care system would eliminate many of the system'smost costly inefficiencies -those related to labor utilization efficiency. Otherbenefits include numerous improvements in quality of health care, collateralbenefits outside that system, "off-proxy" health care benefits,increased public interest in addressing other major inefficiencies in the healthcare system, and benefits to foreign health care systems. In total, thesebenefits could largely cure the health care crisis. Arguments are givensupporting the contention that such large-scale computerization offers both theonly "cure" and the only permanent "cure" for the healthcare crisis.Water-Supply-Related IssuesSince water supply issues play such a crucial role in the above, water supply issuesare reviewed within the Irrigation review. Also, in the soils review is areview of river sediments issues and some data on the global water cycle,including the effects of dams.Purpose and Intent of the Reviews of the Literature on Degradation ofSoils and Croplands, Forest Lands, Grazing Lands, Irrigated Lands and Fisheries:The intended use of these reviews is to provide information to peopleconcerned about population growth, the stability and sustainability of humancivilizations, and the key factors that determine the Earth's carryingcapacity. If you wish to: write articles for the mass media, write informed letters to public officials on public policy matters; prepare lobbying portfolios and testimony for public hearings; do research on the degradation of the Earth's key biomass inventories.then you should find these literature reviews of interest. The intent is to raise the quality of debates over the earth's carryingcapacity and the degradation of the key biomass inventories upon which carryingcapacity depends. These compilations look at biomass degradation from amacro-perspective, i.e. that of interest to policy makers, writers, etc., andnot necessarily to people actually engaged in agriculture, fisheries, etc. --people with more of a micro-perspective.This compilation also reflects efforts to: translate jargon used by experienced workers in the field into terms moreunderstandable to non-experts; obtain a set of basic data that can be used to give perspective to the moreesoteric data, and to aid in calculations, point out the numerous positive feed-backs (instabilities) that characterizethe interaction of Man and his natural, biomass-related life-support systems.Emphasis here is on collection, rather than evaluation, of information. Whenseveral sources give conflicting information, this document presents all sets ofinformation, normally in close proximity. If a source evaluates various dataand arrives at a "best" value, this is also pointed out here. If nosuch evaluations are available, the reader's best recourse may be to take somesort of average of all values given.AN OFFER TO SERIOUS USERS OF THESE REVIEWSYou may find these literature reviews and issue analyses more useful if they are locatedon your own hard drive as word processing documents. Then, besides using the detailedtables of contents, you can also do key-word searches to pick out the facts,figures, sentences and paragraphs you need, copy them to a separate file andthen edit this file to aid in whatever document you are writing. (Nothing inthis website is copyrighted.) You can also make additions to thecontents of your copies of the reviews for your own use in the future.Any or all of the literature reviews, and theanalyses of support for international family planning and globalization areavailable to anyone. They are available free in the form of word-processing filese-mailed toyou as attached files. Just fill in the form below. Then submit theform. Your request is normally responded to within 3 days. If you do notreceive a response by then, contact the author, Bruce Sundquist, (bsundquist1@alltel.net).On rare occasions you may receive a notice saying "This form is notproperly registered with ALLTEL." If this happens, send an E-mail tothe author listing the document(s) that you want. UPDATES: New materials collected since the dates of publicationmentioned aboveare in the form of updates waiting to be categorized and inserted into theweb site. Even though these updates are not yet categorized, youmay still find them useful, either by doing word searches or just scrolling downthrough them. If you would like any of these updates asword-processing files emailed to you as attached files, please indicate this inthe form below before submitting it.YOUR NAME: YOUR CITY AND COUNTRY (OPTIONAL): YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: Please specify which portions of this website you want emailed to you as attachedfiles of word-processing filesSOILS AND CROPLANDS DEGRADATION (2709 KB as 17 WORD2000 files) FOREST LANDS DEGRADATION (1924 KB as 12 WORD2000 files) GRAZING LANDS DEGRADATION (1431 KB as 9 WORD2000 files) IRRIGATED LANDS DEGRADATION (1191 KB as 10 WORD2000 files) FISHERIES DEGRADATION (1735 KB as 13 WORD2000 files) (The above documents include a file of recent updates not yet incorporated intothis website.)SUSTAINABILITY OF GLOBAL OUTPUTS OF FOOD, WOOD and FRESHWATER (1480 KB as 6 WORD2000 files) THE FOOD CRISIS - SOME SOLUTIONS FOR A WORLD WITH FEWER OPTIONS FOR SATISFYING INCREASING DEMANDS (170 KB as one WORD 2000 file) TERRA PRETA -- AN INEXPENSIVE, IF NOT PROFITABLE, SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF GLOBAL WARMING AND DEVELOPING WORLD HUNGER (84 KB as one WORD 2000 file) HUMAN CO-OPTION OF NET PRIMARY PRODUCTION - THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC LIMITS TO GLOBAL CARRYING CAPACITY (89KB as 1 WORD2000 file) U.S. SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING (367 KB as 3 WORD2000 files) CAN FAMILY PLANNING CURE TERRORISM? (337 KB as one WORD2000 file) MUSLIM WORLD'S CHANGING VIEWS TOWARD FAMILY PLANNING (71 KB as one WORD2000 file) QUINACRINE STERILIZATION: THE CONTROVERSY AND THE POTENTIAL (113 KB as one WORD 2000 file) GLOBALIZATION -- CONVERGENCE ISSUE (1088 KB as 5 WORD2000 files) GLOBALIZATION -- OUTSOURCING-INSOURCING (70 KB as one WORD2000 file) INFORMAL ECONOMY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD (231 KB as one WORD2000 file) GLOBALIZATION -- LITERATURE REVIEW (1490 KB as 11 WORD2000 files) LARGE-SCALE COMPUTERIZATION: THE CURE FOR THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS (86 KB as1 WORD2000 file) Which word-processor do you plan to view and edit these attached files on? My computer is Windows-based and my word-processor isWORD2000. If your word processor is WORD97 I will send you *.rtf filesthat WORD97 can open and use.What Word processor do you use? What is the capacity limit of your email in-box in mega-bytes (MB)? 0-2 2-3 3-4 4+ What time-frame characterizes your need for the files requested (in weeks)? 1 2 4 . or WEB SITE STRUCTUREThis site's five literature reviews on natural resource degradation issues are each fairly independent of each other.However they all have the same basic structure, so once you become familiar withone review you will know how to better use the other reviews. None of thesereviews is intended to be read from start to finish. They are to be consideredas reference documents which can be used to obtain specific information. Thecommon components of each review are (in order):Table of Contents -- fairly detailed -- including chapter titles, sectiontitles and sub-section titles. So you can frequently learn where to look toobtain the desired information just by looking through the five Tables of Contents.If you have specific information needs, this is the place to start.Overview: If you just want a broad understanding of the degradation of anatural resource of interest, you could start by reading the Overviews. Thesemight help you frame more specific queries that will require visiting subsequentportions of the literature review to answer. There are few literature citationssupporting statements in Overviews. For these you need to go to the chaptersfollowing the Overview and then to the Reference Lists.Basics: Material that does not fall into the categories of Inventories orDegradation. For example: land classifications, soil formation, technologies,sustainable yields, pollution effects, aridity/climate-related issues.Inventories: Degradation data is hard to comprehend or evaluate unlessthe magnitude of the basic resource is know. E.g., data on South America'scropland topsoil loss is nearly meaningless unless you have a feel for how muchtopsoil South American croplands have, and how much potential (not-used)cropland exists in South America.Degradation: Basic data on cumulative degradation and current degradationrates.History, Law, Politics, Economics: Facts and figures needed to understandthe degradation and its effects more clearly.Appendices: definitions, units conversions and density data -- needed tomake optimal use of information gathered in this document. Note that unitsconversions are of two types -- the usual, precise ones like miles to kilometersand the more imprecise ones such as conversion of pounds of grass to pounds ofbeef. You should check this section whenever you want to do some of your owncalculations based on date you find in these reviews.Organizations and addresses: A list of names, addresses (and sometimestelephone numbers) of organizations involved in issues pertinent to the review.Some of them serve as sources of informative documents on various aspects of thematerial covered in the review. Organizations are referred to in the text (andReference Lists) of this document by a 5-character identifier keyed to theidentifier preceding each organization name/address in this list. Usually these5-character identifiers are preceded by the word "Source:" wheneverthey appear in the text or a Reference List.Reference List: Traceability is an important feature of the informationcompiled in this document. All information compiled is referenced as to itssource. This is not only to lend credibility to this document, but also to helpyou dig deeper into any issue you need a deeper understanding of. Referenceslisted at the end of each Review are keyed to the text by a system of citationsbased on the year of publication, the last name of the lead author, and arunning index. The Reference List and system of reference citations (found inthe text) are based on the year of publication, the last name of the leadauthor, and a running index. For example, the reference citation 93T2 refers tothe second referenced publication published in 1993 by lead authors whose lastnames begin with "T". The advantage of this system is that it makesit easy for the reader to determine when a given reference was written, withouthaving to refer to the Reference list.Comments and Analyses: These are not put into one section of eachreview. Instead, they are incorporated within the other sections of each reviewin the most appropriate spot. In the body of each review, compiler's commentsare intended mainly to help the reader understand the information collected andto point out problems and inconsistencies associated with it. Such comments areheaded by the word "Comments:".Some information evaluation and analysis done by the compiler is alsoincluded here and is labeled "Analysis:". Comments and analysesby the compiler take up well under 10% of this document.NOTES ON TABLE FORMATTINGThese documents are entirely on word-processing files. Nospread-sheet software, graphics files etc. were involved. The most importantdeparture from ordinary word-processing files will be noted in the numeroustables. It was found that the usual tables seen in word-processing documents aremajor memory hogs, and they take up more space than necessary. So to economizeon memory and space and to thereby reduce the time required to email attachedfiles and to upload files onto this web site, most tables have been constructedusing a fixed-pitch font (Courier 10-pt.) with every other blank space filled inwith tildes (~) to prevent browsers from replacing sequences of multiple blankspaces by single blanks, thereby making table columns uneven. Table columns aredivided by vertical bars "|". If you put attached files of the abovedocuments onto your hard drive, you can simply do a Find/ Replace to change alltildes (~) to blank spaces if you wish to make the tables more readable orpresentable. You can also use the existing "|" as column dividers ifyou choose to convert any of the tables to the usual, more formal, type oftables usually seen in word-processing files.(Go to the top of this home page.) |
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