I thought the air in L.A. was brown...:headshake

Which is why I'm unclear why people scream overpopulation.

Under population in most first world countries is creating HUGE problems for us.

Assuming two square feet, rather than a two foot square (4 square feet), that would be 12 billion square feet, or over 275000 acres. So, more than a few.

That would be about 430 square miles. or, a square a bit under 21 miles across, so maybe still a bit smaller than one might expect. About four times the original size of DC.

Suppose that depends on what one means by "just a few acres of land"

An acre is 43,560 square feet. If everyone is given a 2 foot square (meaning a square 2 foot x 2 foot or 4 square feet?) then 10,890 people could stand in an acre. You'd need a bit more than 550,000 acres to hold 6 billion people. That's about 860 square miles or a square a bit less than 30 miles on a side.

Hey, maybe the picture of the water is supposed to represent all of the fresh water on Earth, not the oceans. That would be all rivers, lakes, ice caps, glaciers, frozen mountain tops, reservoirs, clouds, moisture in the air, and water sitting in our toilet tanks.

Maybe. It said every drop of water, and no matter how much salt you add, it's still the same H2O.

Damn statistics again. We always have to ask the "four out of five dentists" question.

The water graph shows all the water and does it accurately, I am confident. The oceans seem deep to humans but they are a very thin layer compared to the earth. Yes, it is surprisingly little. That is the point.

Its similar to taking your rolled up freshly delivered newspaper and spreading it out one page at a time so it covers the entire yard. Or cutting up a playing card to make a stip of cardboard a couple of metres long. We're playing with dimensions here.


As for the population thing, consider the following.
An old style phone booth is somewhat less that one square metre in floor space.
Squeezed in a bit, we can fit 6 people per square metre - allowing for large well-built types as well as children and slim types.
There are 1 million square metres per square kilometre, so we can get 6 million people per square kilometre.

If we allow two vertical metres for each group of six people, we can get 500 layers of people per vertical kilometre.

Hence we can get 6 million x 500 = 3 billion people per cubic kilometre.

Given current global population of around 6.7 billion, the entire human population of the earth could be squeezed into slightly more than two cubic kilometres.

That is about one cubic mile, for you old fashioned types.

Remember, that is squished the hell in with no provision for air supply or movement or anything. Don't even think about the toilet situation!

I've also read that all the gold ever discovered on earth would make a cube 18 metres along each side.

Ok, I see what you're saying. It's not the Earth's surface, it's the entire mass for comparison. Like I said, statistics. You have to examine them further.

People get nervous sailing out of sight of land.
I aways tell them, "Ah come on! We're always within 5 miles of land!"

I always ask - can you swim 5 miles? - Answer - No. - Then don't worry about going 50 or a 100 miles offshore.

Fair enough. It's just Wiki though.

:)

It just looks like a very strange, colorful pair of boobies to me.

That reminds me...When ARE the Golden Globes awarded? :D

Who uses a porta potty, man?