Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution links to a Michael Lind article the substance of which is, can the earth support 9 billion at roughly European levels of wealth?
There is a short and simple answer.
Yes.
How can I be so confident?
Just a few years back there was a large report generated to look at the problems of global warming and climate change. Yes, the famous IPCC report. This was based on a set of scenarios for future development of the world economy, this part known as SRES.
Now, in the SRES they looked at a number of possible population growth scenarios. The 9 billion number was the low estimate. They also made assumptions about growth in the economy. One subset of these (A1T? Or was it B1 Message?) assumed that the entire world in 2100 would be at today’s roughly US living standard. And as we know the US standard is about 30 % higher than Europe. And there were no shortages of anything.
So, there we have it. An official report with the UN standing behind it, the only and therefore best set of predictions or forecasts or scenarios, whatever you want to call them, the one that every environmentalist on the planet, and 50 % of the governments, are telling us to read, digest and act upon, tells us that there is no physical limit to 9 billion living as Europeans do today.
(Note that the IPCC report says that there will be consequences of this, but that is not the same as saying that the consequences are limits.)
The only possible alternative to this is that the IPCC report is wrong. But if it is, then what does that say about climate change and global warming?