OPINION:
“Plunging birth rates threaten to change the makeup of U.S.” (Web, Jan. 16) points out that billionaires and globalists are claiming the world is overpopulated. Is it really?
The global population is about 8 billion. Alaska has a total area of about 586,400 square miles. About 20,000 square miles of that is water (lakes, rivers, etc.), with about 566,400 square miles of dry land. If we multiply that by 5,280 twice, we get approximately 15.79 trillion square feet.
If we divide that by 8 billion, then each person would have an allocation of about 1,970 square feet.
Now, let’s put the people into groups of four to simulate families. (I realize that in real life, some families are larger and some smaller; this is strictly an average for the purposes of illustration.) Each family would have an allocation of about 7,900 square feet.
To allow for infrastructure such as roads, power, water and sewer lines, let’s reduce each family’s allocation to 7,000 square feet. That’s enough for a typical American single-family, middle-income house, including front and back yards.
So the entire world’s population could be comfortably housed in an area the size of Alaska, leaving all the rest of the world to support it.
THOMAS M. CRAWFORD
Laurel, Maryland
Please read our comment policy before commenting.