Population Growth, Energy Use, and the Implications for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

TL;DR

This paper updates previous models on human population and energy growth, projecting future environmental and technological impacts, including climate change and interstellar expansion, with implications for SETI and the Fermi Paradox.

Contribution

It provides an updated analysis using recent data, extending the projected timelines for environmental crises and exploring the implications for advanced civilizations and extraterrestrial intelligence.

Findings

Doomsday for environmental collapse pushed to 2300s-2400s

Earth's temperature may rise by 12K by 2400 if trends continue

Transition to Kardashev type-I civilization expected around 2260

Abstract

Von Hoerner (1975) examined the effects of human population growth and predicted agricultural, environmental, and other problems from observed growth rate trends. Using straightforward calculations, VH75 predicted the "doomsday" years for these scenarios (2020-2050), when we as a species should run out of space or food, or induce catastrophic anthropogenic climate change through thermodynamically unavoidable direct heating of the planet. Now that over four decades have passed, in this paper we update VH75. We perform similar calculations as that work, with improved data and trends in population growth, food production, energy use, and climate change. For many of the impacts noted in VH75 our work amounts to pushing the "doomsday" horizon back to the 2300s-2400s (or much further for population-driven interstellar colonization). This is largely attributable to using worldwide data that exhibit smaller growth rates of population and energy use in the last few decades. While population-related catastrophes appear less likely than in VH75, our continued growth in energy use provides insight into possible future issues. We find that, if historic trends continue, direct heating of the Earth will be a substantial contributor to climate change by about 2260, regardless of the energy source used, coincident with our transition to a Kardashev type-I civilization. We also determine that either an increase of Earth's global mean temperature of 12K will occur or an unreasonably high fraction of the planet will need to be covered by solar collectors by about 2400 to keep pace with our growth in energy use. We further discuss the implications in terms of interstellar expansion, the transition to type II and III civilizations, SETI, and the Fermi Paradox. We conclude that the "sustainability solution" to the Fermi Paradox is a compelling possibility.