Earth has a surface area of 196,940,400 square miles, slightly less than a perfect ball with a diameter of 7913.5 miles (which is the mean diameter of the Earth).

The surface area of the seven continents and all the islands of the world is about 57 million miles, while the total area of the six habitable continents (Antarctica excluded) is around 52 million square miles.

Including Antarctica , over one fifth of the globe's land mass is under water (oceans, lakes, rivers, etc.) or ice. This leaves about 45 million square miles of exposed land.

The human population on Earth is around six billion. If we distribute all the exposed land evenly among all mankind, 133 people would have to share one square mile. What that means is that every single person on Earth, man woman and child would have close to five acres of land for his or her use. More precisely, each person would get 209,000 square feet of land, or a square plot of land 457 feet on each side.

Not all this land can be used beneficially however. A significant portion of the Earth's exposed land is unhabitable or cannot be used for any practical purpose. Large portions lie in the far north. Large portions are extremely arid. Large portions are very mountainous. In sum, only about one fourth of all the land on earth, or somewhat more than 12 million square miles, is usable.

Today, over half of the usable land in the world is in fact not in use. Bringing the unused land into service in many cases would require huge investments of money and effort, and would do considerable damage to the environment. For example, only about 28% of the usable land on the African continent is used for growing crops. Immense tracts of forests or jungles would have to be cleared to bring the rest of the arable land on that continent to productive use.

Thus, only about one eighth of each imaginary plot of land distributed to each person is land which is usable. In effect, each person has a piece of land about 26,000 square feet (a square 161 feet on each side or just a bit more than ½ an acre) at his or her disposal on which to do all that he or she needs.

Within the 4.5 acres excluded is space for public buildings, warehouses, etc.

As a member of EI, it will be your, and our, solemn duty to gather ½ an acre for each person to use as they see fit, as well as to have at least 5 acres per person under our collective control to manage them according to our principles.