Correction Re: Energy, population (and AIDs?)

[Pamela L Gay <pgay@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>]

Fruedian slip - This should be high *school* students, not high students

Quoting Pamela L Gay <pgay@fas.harvard.edu>:

> I recently saw an interesting mathamatical simulation used by a UN worker
> to
> explain the multi-variable nature of helping a small village to high
> students.
>
> Say you start with a community of 500 where the infant death rate is 80%,
> available water is fixed and just enough to serve the community, and food
> comes from farming -- and they aren't using modern methods.
>
> Pretty much anything you do to help these people will increase population
> and
> pretty much nothing you can do will increase water. In a few years the
> small
> town that you tried to help will be suffering from water shortages. Because
> water is getting used to drink, water won't be available for farming, so
> the
> increased population will also lead to famine. Death returns with a new
> face.
>
> The only solution is to teach people they don't need to have 10 children to
> garruntee that two will make it to adulthood. If people learn from
> experience,
> this lesson will take one generation to learn - but that is too long a
> timescale for this.
>
> Has anyone seen (or done) a calculation of energy needs that takes into
> account both population growth as well as deaths due to AIDs?
>
> Cheers,
> Pamela