A 3-Part Exploration by Harald Neslein Sandø
Part 1: There’s Plenty of Room – We Just Don’t Know It
> “The world is overpopulated.”
> “There are just too many people.”
> “We’ve outgrown the planet.”
These phrases get repeated so often, they’re rarely questioned. But what if they’re simply not true? What if the real problem isn’t how many we are — but how we’ve chosen to live?
Let’s take a closer look.
📏 Earth Has Space — Lots of It
The Earth’s total land area is about 13 billion hectares. Of that:
– Around 4.8 billion hectares are used for agriculture (both crops and grazing).
– Another 1.4 billion hectares is classified as arable — good for growing food.
That’s over 6.2 billion hectares of productive land. Now divide that by 8 billion people, and you get 0.77 hectares per person — that’s almost 2 acres each.
For a family of four, that’s 8 acres — a huge area if you think about it. And we’re not even counting forests, mountains, or land that could be re-greened.
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🏡 How Much Do We Actually Need?
You don’t need acres and acres to survive or even thrive. With modern, regenerative methods like permaculture or biointensive gardening, it’s entirely possible to grow enough food for a family of four on 1,000 to 2,000 square meters — that’s about a quarter to half an acre.
And it gets even better. Techniques like vertical farming, hydroponics, and aquaponics allow us to grow large amounts of food in very small areas — even indoors or on rooftops. These methods use a fraction of the water, no pesticides, and can produce fresh food year-round, regardless of climate.
So when we say each person could have 2 acres — we’re not just talking survival. We’re talking abundance. Room for food, nature, beauty, and community — all easily achievable with the tools we already have.
> In Waking Up, we see exactly this kind of life in action.
> Benjamin’s daughter, Amo, lives on re-greened land with her family and descendants. Their home is not a farm in the old sense — but a thriving, self-sustaining ecosystem that provides far more than just food. It’s a place of joy, learning, healing, and deep connection with the Earth.
> This glimpse into her life gives readers not just facts, but feeling — a lived experience of what’s possible when land is shared, loved, and designed for life.
To really get the feel for how it is to live in a world like that, you can order the book here:
🏢 We’re Not Overcrowded — Just Over-Concentrated
If every human on Earth were given a standard 500 m² home lot (big enough for a house and a garden), the entire global population could fit comfortably inside Australia — with room to spare.
It’s not that the planet is full. It’s that we’ve chosen to cluster into massive cities, many of them surrounded by sprawl, while vast areas lie empty, degraded, hoarded or underused. We’ve concentrated ourselves into pressure-cookers, and then called it “overpopulation.”
🌍 The Earth Can Be Reborn
And here’s the best part: even degraded land can be brought back to life.
Massive re-greening efforts are already underway:
– The Great Green Wall in Africa aims to restore 8,000 km of drylands across the Sahel.
– China’s Loess Plateau Project turned a barren, eroded region into green, fertile farmland — and transformed the lives of millions.
– Saudi Arabia, through its Vision 2030, is planting billions of trees to combat desertification.
These aren’t pipe dreams. They’re real-world proof that even the most damaged landscapes can become abundant again — when we work with nature instead of against it.
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🚀 Why Go to Mars When We Haven’t Even Tried Earth?
At the same time, we pour billions into fantasies of colonizing Mars — a dry, radiation-blasted desert planet with no breathable air, no water, and no life.
Meanwhile, we ignore the fertile, blue miracle we already live on — one that could easily support all of us, if we just organized it differently.
We don’t need to terraform Mars. We need to reclaim and redesign Earth, something that is infinitely easier than to terraform another planet. Earth already have breathable air, lots of water, flora and fauna, and not to speak of, we’re already here.
🌱 We Have the Land. We Have the Tools. What Are We Waiting For?
The idea of overpopulation keeps us small. It convinces us to expect less, fight over crumbs, and see each other as the problem. But the truth is: there’s more than enough — if we choose to share, regenerate, and design for life.
📖 Want to feel what this future could be like?
In my novel Waking Up, I take the reader directly into this re-greened, abundant Earth — where humanity has evolved beyond scarcity and competition.
Through the eyes of a man who wakes up in this new world, you’ll get to experience what life might feel like after the shift — when we finally begin to live in balance with each other and the planet.
Coming soon: In Part 2, we’ll dive into why our current systems waste space, hoard land, and create artificial scarcity — and how a better design could provide abundance for all. Subscribe on the bottom to get notified about the next part..
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