Rand Simberg wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 21:48:14 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Earth is already full, and not more than the tiniest fraction of its
people can be launched into space.

Both of those statements are blatantly false.

We could probably double the population, but Earth is full *enough* by
any reasonable standard. We already use about 40% of the Earth's net
photosynthetic product, so we could double the population only if we are
willing to drive a large fraction of the Earth's species to extinction.

There's no basis for any of your statements.

If you have a better figure than 40%, and can back it up, I'd like to
see it. And if you think that the Earth isn't full enough yet - or that
wildlife can survive without habitat - then I guess you're just
unreasonable.

There is room for plenty more people without having to totally
eliminate habitat, and the planet's "net photosynthetic product"
(whatever that means) is not a fixed number.

Increasing it substantially would be a rather expensive proposition.
Destruction of our remaining wildlife habitat will be done first. How
close to totally eliminating wildlife habitat would satisfy you? What
percent of the Earth's species would you allow to be exterminated in the
process?

I don't find the argument that, if I don't agree with you about the
fullness of the earth, it's because I'm "unreasonable," particularly
compelling.

Ok, how about giving me a compelling reason for doubling the population?