I kinda went on a little research spree on economics this afternoon but at one point I figured it’s probably good to know if it’s possible for, say, at least 98% of people on earth to live a happy fulfilled life at all.
I know there’s plenty of people who’d be more than happy to have literally nothing more than a house, food and water, but that still leaves a whole lot of people who want other things in life.
Do we have any metrics or data on wether the earth can sustain roughly 8 billion humans?
Maybe one starting point is the 2 tones of CO₂ estimated to be the annual budget per person to stay at 1.5°C of global warming (already passed). For people living in rich countries, staying under the 2t requires active efforts, it’s possible since developing countries do it, but they are often considered too much of a hassle by the average rich country person: little to no individual car, little to no plane, home energy performance investments, smaller home, less animal food, shopping local etc.
As far as I understand, for the basic needs, it’s totally possible to sustain the demographic peak that should be around 10 billion humans in 2100. But certainly not with the current level of resources consumption in rich countries.
See also the 8 other planetary boundaries that we would need to respect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries