8 ms·

If the world’s population lived like... (infographic)

rheide 14y ago
Scary thought. It would be interesting to see this compared to how much of the world's resources we were using x years ago.
- njharman 14y ago
  You can compare US (or other post industrial, consumer based countries) with India and other countries heading towards post industrial consumerism. They being example of resource usage X years ago
ginko 14y ago
I would love to see this infographic with the Kowloon Walled City at its heyday.
- masklinn 14y ago
  With the density of Kwoloon Walled City (~1,255,000/km^2 in 1987 according to wikipedia), the earth's population would comfortably fit in Delaware[0]: 6.9 billion people would fit into 5498km^2, DE is 6447km^2 Worldwide, the best match would be Olt in Romania (http://goo.gl/maps/i8I02 http://goo.gl/maps/i8I02) which is precisely 5498km^2 For full-fledged countries, Brunei[1] at 5765km^2 [0] US map for scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_(zoom)_(US48).svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei
OoTheNigerian 14y ago
I did not know paris was so dense! I wish people could input their own cites and of course other type of dynamic data. e.g water consumption. I guess that kind of dynamic infographic is what Erick Schonfeld was talking about. [1] [1] http://erickschonfeld.com/2012/06/28/infographics-broken/ http://erickschonfeld.com/2012/06/28/infographics-broken/
- ovi256 14y ago
  It's surprisingly dense given it has had a prohibition on tall buildings since forever. Of course, some buildings are more equal than others and their project went through: tour Montparnasse, some residential projects. If this restriction was removed, I'm pretty sure new developments would resemble dense asian cities and real estate prices would drop. But hey, falling housing prices are bad in political economics, 'mkay ?
  - leyfa 14y ago
    Many European cities have height restrictions for buildings within the old city center to preserve the traditional architecture. The financial district just outside the center has no height limit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense
  - Evbn 14y ago
    NYC and Tokyo are very tall and dense and mor expensive than Seattle which has height limits. You are overlooking the factor of how density begets density.
SudarshanP 14y ago
http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/
- zanny 14y ago
  Why didn't I know about this. My evening has been forfeited for my Randallicious overlord.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Animal meat, which has an enormous ecological footprint, is on its way out. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not saying this on top of some moral high horse, but it's inefficient and the way animals are raised and slaughtered now is insanely cruel. We'll have credible plant-based meats in 20 years, easily. In 150 years, eating actual animals will be this nostalgic and slightly goofy thing that rich people do, like fox hunting in England, because cow steaks will cost hundreds of dollars (rarity) while plant steaks that taste exactly like the real thing (or better) will be effectively free. No one knows when Peak Oil will hit or how it will play out, and I'm concerned about it, but I think the long-term outcome is that (a) we'll be fine (although we may get hurt bad by it in the short-term) and (b) objections to nuclear power will vanish. In 50 years, we'll probably be using very cheap, environmentally safe nuclear power, and able to produce food in vertical greenhouses. The world's population will likely peak around 9.5-10 billion and then begin declining because people are having fewer children. So I don't think we're in danger of a Malthusian catastrophe, aside from the fact that the developing world is already in one. We're actually coming out of the Malthusian era. Malthus was wrong about the mathematics (economic growth is exponential; it was just so slow-- below 1%-- before the Industrial Revolution that it looked linear) but he was right about the population dynamics of pretty much every pre-industrial society.
- alexchamberlain 14y ago
  Thanks for a good laugh. FYI fox hunting is banned and your horse is high enough to use for hunting. > credible plant-based meats in 20 years What is a plant-based meat? I don't know of any plants with muscles.
  - 4ad 14y ago
    I downvoted you because you made zero effort in researching what the OP said before acting so dismissive. Depending on where you live, it's possible you never eaten nor seen meat substitutes made of soy, but before refuting a claim you should check some facts, not make a claim based on your own lack of knowledge about the subject. "I've never seen something therefore it must not exist".
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
cultureulterior 14y ago
The world is not a zero-sum game.
- yen223 14y ago
  We only have resources of one planet to share among the entire population, so I think it's safe to say that it is a zero-sum game. Assuming of course, we don't end up going into space.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    The earth's not a closed system, it's powered by the Sun. --MC Hawking.
    - dredmorbius 14y ago
      The solar flux is reasonably constant and finite. Various cycles (CO2, nitrogen, water, soil) are also relatively finite. We've been perturbing several of these for quite some time, with ultimate effects we can't really know. Not to mention any natural variability within the system.
antidoh 14y ago
When you look at the last few lived-like countries in the list, including the US, keep in mind that we use resources like drunken sailors because we can. We have much more land and resources than we need, so we trade long term waste for short term cost. I think it's reasonable to assume that we could, if we decided, be much better at using, reusing and conserving our resources. And if we did that, it would be possible for the rest of the world to bring their standard of living up to the US or better, and still not use multiples of the world's available resources. If that's what we decided.
mchahn 14y ago
Conterminous? I learn something new on HN every day, but new words are unusual.

Scary thought. It would be interesting to see this compared to how much of the world's resources we were using x years ago.

njharman 14y ago
You can compare US (or other post industrial, consumer based countries) with India and other countries heading towards post industrial consumerism. They being example of resource usage X years ago

ginko 14y ago

I would love to see this infographic with the Kowloon Walled City at its heyday.

masklinn 14y ago
With the density of Kwoloon Walled City (~1,255,000/km^2 in 1987 according to wikipedia), the earth's population would comfortably fit in Delaware[0]: 6.9 billion people would fit into 5498km^2, DE is 6447km^2 Worldwide, the best match would be Olt in Romania (http://goo.gl/maps/i8I02 http://goo.gl/maps/i8I02) which is precisely 5498km^2 For full-fledged countries, Brunei[1] at 5765km^2 [0] US map for scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_(zoom)_(US48).svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaware_in_United_States_... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

OoTheNigerian 14y ago

I did not know paris was so dense! I wish people could input their own cites and of course other type of dynamic data. e.g water consumption. I guess that kind of dynamic infographic is what Erick Schonfeld was talking about. [1] [1] http://erickschonfeld.com/2012/06/28/infographics-broken/ http://erickschonfeld.com/2012/06/28/infographics-broken/

ovi256 14y ago
It's surprisingly dense given it has had a prohibition on tall buildings since forever. Of course, some buildings are more equal than others and their project went through: tour Montparnasse, some residential projects. If this restriction was removed, I'm pretty sure new developments would resemble dense asian cities and real estate prices would drop. But hey, falling housing prices are bad in political economics, 'mkay ?
- leyfa 14y ago
  Many European cities have height restrictions for buildings within the old city center to preserve the traditional architecture. The financial district just outside the center has no height limit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense
- Evbn 14y ago
  NYC and Tokyo are very tall and dense and mor expensive than Seattle which has height limits. You are overlooking the factor of how density begets density.

SudarshanP 14y ago

http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/

zanny 14y ago
Why didn't I know about this. My evening has been forfeited for my Randallicious overlord.

michaelochurch 14y ago

Animal meat, which has an enormous ecological footprint, is on its way out. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not saying this on top of some moral high horse, but it's inefficient and the way animals are raised and slaughtered now is insanely cruel. We'll have credible plant-based meats in 20 years, easily. In 150 years, eating actual animals will be this nostalgic and slightly goofy thing that rich people do, like fox hunting in England, because cow steaks will cost hundreds of dollars (rarity) while plant steaks that taste exactly like the real thing (or better) will be effectively free. No one knows when Peak Oil will hit or how it will play out, and I'm concerned about it, but I think the long-term outcome is that (a) we'll be fine (although we may get hurt bad by it in the short-term) and (b) objections to nuclear power will vanish. In 50 years, we'll probably be using very cheap, environmentally safe nuclear power, and able to produce food in vertical greenhouses. The world's population will likely peak around 9.5-10 billion and then begin declining because people are having fewer children. So I don't think we're in danger of a Malthusian catastrophe, aside from the fact that the developing world is already in one. We're actually coming out of the Malthusian era. Malthus was wrong about the mathematics (economic growth is exponential; it was just so slow-- below 1%-- before the Industrial Revolution that it looked linear) but he was right about the population dynamics of pretty much every pre-industrial society.

alexchamberlain 14y ago
Thanks for a good laugh. FYI fox hunting is banned and your horse is high enough to use for hunting. > credible plant-based meats in 20 years What is a plant-based meat? I don't know of any plants with muscles.
- 4ad 14y ago
  I downvoted you because you made zero effort in researching what the OP said before acting so dismissive. Depending on where you live, it's possible you never eaten nor seen meat substitutes made of soy, but before refuting a claim you should check some facts, not make a claim based on your own lack of knowledge about the subject. "I've never seen something therefore it must not exist".

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

cultureulterior 14y ago

The world is not a zero-sum game.

yen223 14y ago
We only have resources of one planet to share among the entire population, so I think it's safe to say that it is a zero-sum game. Assuming of course, we don't end up going into space.
- Evbn 14y ago
  The earth's not a closed system, it's powered by the Sun. --MC Hawking.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    The solar flux is reasonably constant and finite. Various cycles (CO2, nitrogen, water, soil) are also relatively finite. We've been perturbing several of these for quite some time, with ultimate effects we can't really know. Not to mention any natural variability within the system.

antidoh 14y ago

When you look at the last few lived-like countries in the list, including the US, keep in mind that we use resources like drunken sailors because we can. We have much more land and resources than we need, so we trade long term waste for short term cost. I think it's reasonable to assume that we could, if we decided, be much better at using, reusing and conserving our resources. And if we did that, it would be possible for the rest of the world to bring their standard of living up to the US or better, and still not use multiples of the world's available resources. If that's what we decided.

mchahn 14y ago

Conterminous? I learn something new on HN every day, but new words are unusual.