Space colonization is another way of coping with more people (again on a longer timescale than 40 years.)
Space colonization isn’t really all that necessary, if we’re talking about human habitation. On the other hand, if we’re talking about space industrialization—constructing industrial/economic materials/objects in space—then that definitely opens the floor to sustaining significantly larger populations here on earth, with just a touch of additional materials-science “shenanigans”.
Orbital solar-thermal power plants (if constructed offworld with bootstrapped lunar industry) could push humanity to post-Kardashev-Type-I energy consumption. This reduces energy costs as a primary economic concern.
The adoption of skyscraper farming techniques would reduce vast swathes of human ecological impact (in addition to the offset of energy production offered by point #1.) It would also significantly reduce current human land-use by area. These two things in turn would allow for greater human population without apparent depreciation in available square-footage per person.
The adoption of higher-strength materials for construction (CNTs for example) could permit the development of ‘megastructures’ terrestrially. This, in turn, would allow for multi-level urban environments. Imagine a single building the size of the NYC metropolitan area that was half a mile high. Even if it was primarily open-air, and dedicated 25% of its area to “parkland”, that would still represent as much as a ten-fold increase in “habitatation area” using generous amounts of square-footage per person. (I’m heavily ‘ballparking’ numbers here.)
-- In case it isn’t entirely obvious; the scenario I just described would allow for the increase of human populations by approximately 20x our current numbers, all while reducing the total landmass utilized and our ecological footprint. (Industry, energy consumption, and agriculture would all cease having observable ecological footprints.)
While clinical immortality might decrease the TFR necessary for population replacement, it certainly wouldn’t reduce it to zero. (Accidents, plain and simply speaking, happen. As do intentional deaths.) The question then follows—what rate of TFR would such a culture described operate at?
Space colonization isn’t really all that necessary, if we’re talking about human habitation. On the other hand, if we’re talking about space industrialization—constructing industrial/economic materials/objects in space—then that definitely opens the floor to sustaining significantly larger populations here on earth, with just a touch of additional materials-science “shenanigans”.
Orbital solar-thermal power plants (if constructed offworld with bootstrapped lunar industry) could push humanity to post-Kardashev-Type-I energy consumption. This reduces energy costs as a primary economic concern.
The adoption of skyscraper farming techniques would reduce vast swathes of human ecological impact (in addition to the offset of energy production offered by point #1.) It would also significantly reduce current human land-use by area. These two things in turn would allow for greater human population without apparent depreciation in available square-footage per person.
The adoption of higher-strength materials for construction (CNTs for example) could permit the development of ‘megastructures’ terrestrially. This, in turn, would allow for multi-level urban environments. Imagine a single building the size of the NYC metropolitan area that was half a mile high. Even if it was primarily open-air, and dedicated 25% of its area to “parkland”, that would still represent as much as a ten-fold increase in “habitatation area” using generous amounts of square-footage per person. (I’m heavily ‘ballparking’ numbers here.)
-- In case it isn’t entirely obvious; the scenario I just described would allow for the increase of human populations by approximately 20x our current numbers, all while reducing the total landmass utilized and our ecological footprint. (Industry, energy consumption, and agriculture would all cease having observable ecological footprints.)
While clinical immortality might decrease the TFR necessary for population replacement, it certainly wouldn’t reduce it to zero. (Accidents, plain and simply speaking, happen. As do intentional deaths.) The question then follows—what rate of TFR would such a culture described operate at?