Jim Menegay  wrote or quoted:

> By "maximum potential of the Earth", do you mean the maximum
sustainable
> human population?  My guess would be 1-2 billion people, though others
> are less pessimistic.
> 
> But, I have to ask, why do you wish to actually achieve the maximum?
> What is lost if we were to "run" the earth a little less close to
> the "red line" and only support half of the absolute maximum possible
> population of humans?

Questions about how many humans the planet can sustain for extended 
periods are difficult to answer.

n_Growth.htm
....has the world's population rising to around 10 billion people by
2150 and then levelling off - but 146 years is a long time, and
predictions on that sort of scale are necessarily quite speculative.

I suspect that this graph represents an under-estimate - and that
substantial population growth will continue on the planet long after
that point.

The planet supporting large numbers of people /is/ important.  Humanity
is part of a race - and its long-term success may depend critically on
its rate of development.  While over-population won't do us much good, 
under-population is to be avoided as well - since a smaller number of
scientists, engineers, and technologists will slow down progress - and
may eventually result in increased probabilty of our extinction due
to our lacking the technology needed to face challenges.
-- 
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