here's a toughie

[random]

o.k. the question is if we take the earth's population at any given time in the present (what it is approximately) and we stood everyone side by side on one continent approximately how much of the earth's surface would be covered by living human being's. We will assume each person covers 1.5 square feet of space. to avoid a large debate about how to average the size.

 

I became interested after viewing images from a satellite. from the eye in the sky it does not appear that humans occupy a significant amount of the earth's crust even when you include buildings roadway's etc. from up there a city looks like a bottle cap on the lawn.

[Mr Skeptic]

It's not a toughie, it's simply web searching skills and simple arithmatic.

 

148,940,000 km² land area

~7,000,000,000 population

 

at 1.5 ft² each, that would be 975 km², or 0.00065%

 

It would be horribly and probably fatally crammed though.

[random]

And that confirms my suspicions, we hardly occupy much of the earth. Now I'm going to find out the amount in lb's of food we consume per annum. If you are wondering why it is because of all the conspiracy talk about how we are over populating the earth. There is plenty of room and plenty of food as far as I am concerned we are just not very good at sharing. After I get all the neccessary info I'll start a new thread in the appropriate forum. Thanks for your help.

[ydoaPs]

It would be horribly and probably fatally crammed though.

Especially since it's almost certain that, at any given moment, at least one person needs to poo.

 

And that confirms my suspicions, we hardly occupy much of the earth. Now I'm going to find out the amount in lb's of food we consume per annum. If you are wondering why it is because of all the conspiracy talk about how we are over populating the earth. There is plenty of room and plenty of food as far as I am concerned we are just not very good at sharing. After I get all the neccessary info I'll start a new thread in the appropriate forum. Thanks for your help.

Then that number is effectively useless.

[Mr Skeptic]

What you need to find is the size of people's ecological footprint (ie, how much land area is used to maintain their lifestyle). This would include both food and other necessities as well as entertainment and work.

[random]

well kinda sorta, as an intelligent species our habitat is somewhat different than the animal kingdom. We can survive and thrive on less habitual space and have the resources to compact our agricultural area we need for food. In the animal kingdom a species could require 1 km square per member in order to effectively find food we do not need that much because we can combine our resources and efforts.

Your number gave me a starting point crammed we would need .00065% of the earth's current land mass let's expand that to .001 only to make the figures easy though I have not yet computed the figures I am going to guess that we actually require in terms of food and housing less than 1% of the space on this planet to live comfortably. It is our drive for everything new and little re used that makes our world seem so small.

[Mr Skeptic]

Well Americans need about 12 hectares each for sustainable living, if that helps any.