this is from 1991 (from here http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#link1)
The human population of this planet is now approaching six billion and, even if every country on Earth enforced a strict and effective birth-control policy today, it is estimated that the total population will climb to fifteen billion before stabilising. The Earth's total land area is 179,941,270 square kilometres (69,479,518 square miles). A little simple mathematics tells us that at present, on average, one square kilometre has to support just over thirty-three people. If all of it were cultivated, that would certainly be possible.
The argument fails, however, because not all of it is available for arable cultivation. The main environmental factors which determine plant development and distribution are climate and soil type. We can discount the whole of the unproductive continent of Antarctica, so that reduces the total by 13,335,740 square kilometres immediately.
We can also discount, at least as far as arable farming is concerned, all other ice-covered areas, tundra, mountains, deserts, heath and moor land, areas covered by rivers, salt marshes and lakes, cities, roads, and railways; and to a large extent semi-deserts, savannah, rain forest, low-lying meadow land and areas liable to regular flooding. We have now discounted most of the Earth's surface. In fact, only eleven percent of the land surface is farmed.
Almost all of the land we have just discounted does support grass or other plant life which we cannot utilise directly
The prosperous, well-fed United Kingdom has a total land area of some 88,736 square miles (229,827 sq km) and a population of 57,537,000 ( 1991 Census)
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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii
Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.â€
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein