Desertification Theory

Work with me here.... (don't EVER let me do math when I'm tired)

The average human weighs 72.5 kg (old stat, but we'll use it anyway).
70% of the human body is water. That makes each human 50.75 kg of potable water.
1 kg = 1 l so that's 50.75 liters of water.
In 1900, only 1.65 billion people roamed the Earth. That's only 8.1 x 10 to the 11 liters of water.

There are currently 6.6 billion people (rounded down) 6.6 x 10 to the 9
That's 330,000,000,000,000 (or 3.3 x 10 to the 11) liters of potable water.

There are roughly 192,000 people added to the Earth every day. (I rounded down).
That makes the amount of potable water taken up by NEW human bodies 9.7 million liters daily. (9.7 x 10 to the 6)

Add the average daily (world, not US) use of water at 83 liters per person per day and you get another 5.5 x 10 to the 11 that the Earth does not have access to on any given day to create weather.

I'm not even going into the estimated liters trapped in trash heaps, landfills, etc., or in "modern" burial of bodies.


The Great Lakes in the US hold 6 quadrillion (6 x 10 to the 18) gallons (or 2.27 x 10 to the 19 liters) of fresh water; one-fifth of the world's fresh surface water (only the polar ice caps and Lake Baikal in Siberia contain more).

Now - when you look at these HUGE numbers, the amount in human bodies doesn't seem like that much.

But when you look at it in terms of an incredibly delicate balance that IS the Earth, the numbers add up. You can't take this much water out of circulation and expect the Earth to continue raining like before.

Looking at the future - 2050 say - predictions of between 9 and 9.4 billion are being bantered about. So, 9.2 x 10 to the 9 people using, both in their little jars of bodies or in their use, 1.2 x 10 to the 12 liters of water.

Am I advocating that every adult human become sterile for, say, a 10 year period? Not really.

What I am saying is that it shows humans, even without global warming, even without burning rain forests, even without poor crop management, are creating a very direct impact on desertification. Even if we did everything perfectly, irrigation, stop burning rain forests, proper crop management (retaining topsoil), we would still see deserts increase, droughts increase and huge swings in the rain cycle pendulum.

What can we do? I don't know. Strive for perfection in irrigation, crop management, rain forest restoration. That will at least slow the process.

If my math is off, PLEASE correct me. I did this on paper and am rusty with my exponents.

I've gone over it again and fixed the numbers. I'm sure I'll keep looking it over....