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How Many People Can the Earth Support?
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 304.61
EAN: 9780393314953
ISBN: 0393314952
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 542
Publication Date: 1995
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company
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Editorial Review:
The best thing about this book is that it doesn't answer the question asked in its title. At least not directly. Joel Cohen understands that nobody really knows how many people can fit on our planet, thanks to constant technological advances in areas like crop yield. He is rightly skeptical of the Malthusian doomsayers who constantly predict catastrophe, but also shows that current rates of population growth cannot continue forever. A more extended discussion of politics might have helped--China's horrific one-child rule barely comes up--but for an honest treatment of human population dynamics, this is a very good source.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - What we know about constraints on population growth
Obviously, the population of the world has been growing dramatically for the past few centuries. How high can it go? At how high a level can it be maintained? What restrictions are placed by the available resources, such as food and water?
This book asks many of the right questions. And it admits that we don't have all the answers. But it does give some clues about where we may be headed.
Cohen shows that basically, if we want to support people indefinitely on 3500 ... Read More
Rating:  - Typically naive
Using the Rule Of 70, a population which grows at 1% per annum doubles in 70 years. A population which grows at 2 % doubles in 35 years. Both are considered fine examples of exponential growth (each at a constant rate of growth, producing a lovely exponential curve). The question is, if a population grows at variable rates, but always between 1 and 2 % (and thus
is guarenteed to double in 35 to 70 years) - is this exponential growth?
Not only does Cohen fail to discuss the variable compound ... Read More
Rating: - Finally, an honest book
This is a book that should be used to bludgeon every Julian Simon fan and every Zero Population Growth fanatic to depth. (You hear that Brian Cornell at overpopulation.com? I'm coming over your place with a hardcover edition to smash your cornucopian little mind!) This book doesn't pander to either the alarmists who think doom is just a year or two ahead, or to the giddy technocrats a la Julian Simon who think that technology combined with human beings' ineffable goodness is about to bring about ... Read More
Rating: - Very good
I thought that this book was a very refreshing change from the many other books I have read on the subject of overpopulation. Joel Cohen is very fair and writes without a political agenda. He helped me understand the issues and variables much better than any other author on the subject. However, I sometimes got lost in the statistics and mathematics and found some parts hard to wade through.
Rating: - Probably the best book ever written on population.
Definitive, yet almost breezy. Should be required reading for anyone thinking seriously about the future, be they science fiction writers, futurologists, policy analysts, strategic planners, portfolio managers or concerned citizens.
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