Brenna Copeland

The Bet What is the Carrying Capacity of the Earth

Student Worksheet

Introduction

Based on the world demographic profile, we have seen human population

continues to grow so that we can expect a growth of around 2 billion more
people in the next 50 years with a leveling off in population growth likely to
produce a near stable population of about 10 million by the close of this
century. Will the Earth be able to provide sufficient resources to support that
growth on top of an already large 7 billion people? What is the carrying
capacity of the Earth? If we know that, then perhaps the necessary planning
and negotiating to establish worldwide environmental and energy policies
would be easier to accomplish.

Unfortunately, the true carrying capacity of the Earth remains an unknown. In

the 1970s Paul Erlich suggested a relationship between environmental impact
(I), human population (P) and the affluence of that population (A). An
additional factor, technology (T) was added to account for the rapid changes in
technology that might both decrease and increase environmental impacts. The
resulting equation was expressed as:

I=P A T

The equation format suggests more of a quantitative relationship between

these factors than has been established and few researchers have found that
simple multiplication can be used to evaluate environmental impacts. For
example, simply adding to population does not necessarily have a
multiplicative impact on the environment even after the relative affluence of
the added population has been taken into account. However, the IPAT
equation, as it is often called, has been helpful as a tool for broadly evaluating
the impacts of increasing population and changing affluence.

In 1968, Paul Erlich, who first introduced the IPAT equation, wrote a book called
The Population Bomb that predicted a terrible shortage, starvation and
collapse if population continued to rise. Julian Simon, an economist, was quite
skeptical of Erlichs black view of the future. Based on his work as an
economist, Simon thought that the combination of human inventiveness and
effective economic markets would lead to imaginative solutions saving humans
from starvation and collapse even in the face of shortage essentially arguing
that the carrying capacity of the Earth, for clever humans, at least, was infinite.

Created by The North Carolina School of Science and Math.

Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. . 1
Brenna Copeland

To bring attention to his views, Julian publicly challenged Erlich to a bet. To find
out more about the bet and how it all came out, listen to (or read) the following
descriptions of the bet.

A Bet, five metals and the future of The Planet, by David Kestenbaum on
All Things Considered, January 2, 2014.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-bet-five-
metals-and-the-future-of-the-planet

Betting on the Apocalypse, by Paul Sabin in the New York Times,

September 7, 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/opinion/sunday/betting-on-the-
apocalypse.html?_r=0

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Questions based on the reading assignment

1. What was the bet based on? The bet was based on the population and if we
will run out of resources. Erlich believed as the population increased the
prices of resources would also increase due to less availability. Simon argued
that humans would adapt and find new solutions. They decided to test their
ideas with a bet. The bet was on if various metal prices would go up or down
in the following ten years.

2. Why do you think Erlich and his colleagues chose those items to bet on?
Why did they think the price of those items would go up over a 10-year
period? Erlich choose items that were highly demanded and in his eyes,
would likely increase in demand in the future. He believed the price would
go up in the next ten years because he believed the demand would increase
as an effect of population growth.

3. Are the items they chose to bet on essential to life? The items he chose
were not required for life but were very useful. He chose supplementary
items. Metals are not needed for our survival, but are useful and helpful.

4. Use this site http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/ to check the price

history of the commodities that were used in this bet in more recent times.
List each of the commodities, their price 10 years ago and their price today.

Copper Chromium Nickel Tin Tungsten

Created by The North Carolina School of Science and Math.

Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. . 2
Brenna Copeland

10years 5.69K 3 USD/kg 36.82K 11.33K 250WO

Ago
Now 5.75K 2 USD/kg 9.97K 20.69K 225WO

5. Who would have won the bet if the 10-year period that was chosen ended
today? Some prices went up and some went down. More of the prices
dropped, so Simon would also win this bet.

6. What does Dr. Sabin, writing in the New York Times about the bet, think that
Paul Erlich and the environmentalists that support him missed about
Simons position? Erlich and the environmentalists did not take the fact the
humans can adapt and change into consideration.

7. What does Dr. Sabin think that the more conservative forces that support
Julian Simons position did not understand about Paul Erlichs position? Erlich
did not take the market into consideration at all in his proposition. He simply
just looked at numbers and did not take social changes or adaptations into
consideration.

8. What commodities do you expect will be much more costly 10 years from
now? Why? I believe non-renewable sources will be costlier in the future
because we are starting to run low on the sources. Non-renewable sources
are being used much faster than they are being produced.

Created by The North Carolina School of Science and Math.

Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. . 3