How many people can the Earth contain?

There are more than 7 billion people living on Earth, this number is very fast. This makes many people question: How many people can Earth contain?

It is estimated that the world population will increase to 10 billion by the end of the 21st century. Scientists have not determined whether this is a sustainable level or not.

First, assess the amount of food, if you combine the entire area used for breeding on a continent, this land will be wider than Africa. The area of ​​Africa is about 30.4 million km ² , while the total breeding area is about 32.4-36.4 million km ² in 2016. The area of ​​crops will be equivalent to South America, about 17.8 million km ^2. .

The world population will increase to 10 billion by the end of the 21st century.

However, the soil will gradually degenerate, meaning that the fertility is reduced, the soil is eroded and the soil cannot continue to grow.

Scientists have not been able to ascertain whether farmers maintain current crop yields due to changing environments.

On average, the amount of CO2 emitted per capita is 5 tons per year, according to 2016 statistics. This figure in the US is about 17 tons. If there are 3 billion more people living on Earth with similar emissions, global warming will become more serious.

Experts predict that the temperature of the Earth will rise by 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century. The weather will be more severe, affecting food production. This predicament will be overcome somewhat if people turn to vegetarianism, take land for livestock to plant more trees.

But plants cannot produce enough food for infinite people. Some experts say they will only make enough food for about 10 billion people. Moreover, most will not switch to a complete vegetarian diet but still eat more meat.

So what about the amount of water?

People are using about 30% of renewable and accessible water on Earth. The rest is for agriculture.

Some water sources in countries such as Ethiopia, Cambodia, Haiti . are not even clean enough to drink. As the population increases, the amount of human water used must also increase. Maybe the Earth is capable of storing lots of people, perhaps more than 10 billion. But the quality of life will be very different then.