Obviously there are hard limits on how many people the earth can support, but it is a theoretical discussion on the level of how long we have until the sun collapses or the heat death of the universe occurs.
I don’t really think this is true. Exponential growth can put up some very high numbers very fast. At 2010 growth rates, humanity should be in the quadrillions within mere centuries. In contrast, sun changes should not make earth uninhabitable for millions of years at least.
Maybe the question to population deniers should be framed as:
What upper and lower bounds do you place on the hard limits of how many humans the planet can support indefinitely?
What upper and lower bounds do you place on the rate at which technological progress pushes the practically achievable limits toward the hard limits above?
What upper and lower bounds on future world population levels given that the current number is 7 billion?
From this we can then derive at least a self-consistent probability that overpopulation deniers should assign to Malthusian Crunch.
I don’t really think this is true. Exponential growth can put up some very high numbers very fast. At 2010 growth rates, humanity should be in the quadrillions within mere centuries. In contrast, sun changes should not make earth uninhabitable for millions of years at least.
Yes, exactly.
Maybe the question to population deniers should be framed as:
What upper and lower bounds do you place on the hard limits of how many humans the planet can support indefinitely?
What upper and lower bounds do you place on the rate at which technological progress pushes the practically achievable limits toward the hard limits above?
What upper and lower bounds on future world population levels given that the current number is 7 billion?
From this we can then derive at least a self-consistent probability that overpopulation deniers should assign to Malthusian Crunch.