Earth is Room Enough, or Stand on Zanzibar/Delaware.

Excuse me tooting my own horn, but I think a comment of mine deserves it’s own post. (I love math.)

Vader linked to a graphic/factoid that illustrates that the volume of water on earth (approx 1.37 billion cubic kilometers) would fit into a sphere 700 kilometers in radius (870 miles in diameter).

1.37 billion cubic KILOmeters is a big number, but juxtaposed to the whole earth it might seem that that might not be enough water for an earth-sized planet full of people.

Now let’s get a feel for how the whole human population, estimated at 7 billion, relates to the surface area of the planet.

John Brunner wrote a novel called Stand on Zanzibar, expressing the image of a projected world population of 7,000,000,000 standing shoulder to shoulder, all fitting on the main island of Zanzibar, approximately 600 square miles. That would give each person, on average, 2.39 square feet, 600*5280*5280/7000000000. Or, each person taking up a square 18.5 inches on a side.

I’m a bit crowd-phobic, so let’s be a bit more generous, and give everyone a square yard, 9 square feet, a little plot 3 feet by 3 feet.

7000000000 people * 1 square yard = 7000000000 square yards.
(1760 yards/mile)
7000000000/1760/1760 = 2260 square miles.

2260 ^ .5 = 47.54 miles per side.

Delaware is 2490 square miles.

So Isaac Asimov was right, the Earth is Room Enough, and we could all stand on Delaware.