That's exactly the kind of stuff I hope to see in response to such a miserable topic. No arogance. No opinions. No arguing. Just good, solid info. Thanks for the vid.
Ahhh shroomery. I have learned many things from their board. I've never grown shiitake but mushrooms are another hobby of mine. You're setup and mine could pry sit next to each other and we'd have a hard time telling them apart =)
The unfortunate thing about creating more food is that it increases population, which means you need to produce more food, its an endless cycle that will eventually lead to our destruction.
Imagine if you built a skyscraper with floors of that, would take up little ground space and would create lots a lots of food.
Define eventually. How long is that exactly? Can you give me a range or something? How far out do your probabilistic models go? What variables are you taking into consideration? Also, by "our destruction" you mean the extinction of humans or at least the deaths of most of them, yes? Correct me if I'm misunderstanding you.
I dont know how long, im not big into math either. The fact that our society is based on the consumption and destruction of the environment. No other organism does this, and because we do our population has exploded over the past couple years. There will come a point where our population becomes so great that earth can not support us, unless of course we have a major societal shift in the way we live. Most people will die, there would probably be pockets of survivors especially tribes and the like who are used to living off the land.
I believe the Japanese have prototypes of this. I'll try to find a link. Still, damn awful lot of petroleum for fertalizers. Nothing we yet know of contains necessary concentrations of nitrates, etc. Compost is only 1/30th the amount IIRC.
It seems you've just taken a pessimistic view of the future because you perceive things as going downhill right now. You can't possibly know what technological advances and/or major societal shifts will happen in the next 50+ years. At what point, do you think the Earth will be unable to support us in terms of population? Please explain how you came up with this figure/range. If there is no figure or range, then why even bother thinking about it? At some indefinite time in the future, bad things will happen & lots of people will die because we consume too much! Don't ask me when it will happen, but, believe me, it's practically inevitable!
I don't really think that any serious "expert" in the field subscribes to the Mass Die-Off Theory here. The best case scenario is that we will rapidly regress to an sustainability that would much resemble life in the country in the 50s. Unfortunately, there is the possibility of complete and total mayhem. The fact of the matter is that Industrial Nations need oil like your body needs water. Just like folks who are dying of thirst will kill for a bucket of water to save their children, nations will go to war for oil. It's happening right now. Why are we still in the Middle East? What happened to "Mission Accomplished"? I thought we killed Osama Bin Laden? If you truly think it had anything to to with killing terrorists, your are largely wrong. The very first thing we did in the ME was allow Halliburton to drill wells in Iraq - before we even turned the nations lights back on. Before we established running water, etc. There was a massive oil shock in 2007/2008 where prices skyrocketed to damn near $150/bl of oil, up from an already inflated $40/bl. The result was major economic recession. If you don't believe me, believe history. I challenge anyone to post an example of an oil shock that wasn't followed by a recession. I would like see it if it exists. Coincidentally, despite years of US saboteurs, Iran finally opened it's oil Bourse, trading any currency EXCEPT the dollar. For a country that passes it's inflation off on to other countries in the form of oil sales, this was a major blow. Now we have to eat it all ourselves, as the US dollar rapidly loses it power as the world reserve currency. Before Iran, you could not by oil anywhere with any other currency than the dollar. US owned the two primary exchanges flat-out. As another bit of oil trivia: -Saddam Huessien was the 1st to try and sell oil in currencies other than the dollar with the Oil-for-Food Programme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. We promptly invaded. We take this stuff seriously. -We bankrupted the Soviet Regime by flooding the market with cheap Saudi crude, effectively eliminating Russian oil sales, which were much more expensive to bring to market. As a result, they couldn't keep up in the arms race. Oil is more powerful than most will ever know. It's the only reason we don't have slavery anymore. The combustion of one cup of gasoline provides energy release equal to 30+ full grown men pushing a car for the duration of one mile. It gets shit done. Of course, I would hope that the world is humane enough now to never consider atrocities such as slavery. Just saying.
Im not being pessimistic, im being realistic. I want there to be a societal change, I am saying that if there is not one that we are fucked. Is it that hard to understand that the earth can only support so much life? Especially if we are adding to its destruction. It could happen in a 100 years, maybe 1000 thats not the point. Humans live as if we control the environment, I see this as very stupid as we are no different than any other organism on earth. As long as we believe that we have the power to control the environment, we will end up destroying it and ourselves. Also there would be no societal change unless there where people like me advocating for it, so thats what I am doing.
Peak Oil, Pandemic, Starvation, Scarcity, Poverty and even (especially) Politics... these are all Negative side effects of the one, true problem: Over Population.
Dubaba, we are different from other organisms on this planet in many ways. We can "control the environment" to an extent and our ability to "control the environment" can increase through innovation. Whether or not you think this will lead to destruction is completely subjective and probably based on your perception of the current state of affairs and maybe history, which isn't exactly a fool-proof method to predict the future. What are your (NefariousBredd & dubaba) solutions to these issues (overpopulation, oil, etc.)? I already know what dubaba advocates in terms of societal change (ie socialism/communism). Do you guys know what fusion energy is? Geothermal? Do you think something like that could be developed in the next 50 years? What about fuel/solar cells? I don't subscribe to the idea of overpopulation happening anytime soon (ie my lifetime), but I will admit that humans can destroy the environment if other humans let them.
This is the only important question. To the problems of energy, there is no silver-bullet solution. It will be a combination of obscure petroleum sources, hydrogen carriers, bio-fuels, nuclear, solar, wind, etc. We need to pull energy from any and every source possible. Regulation of (and I HATE regulation) of consumption by business and government alike will need to be addressed. The present regulatory framework does more to obscure energy consumption than anything. Bottom line is, energy-return on energy-spent ratio is 32x1 for petroleum. Energy-return to energy-spent ratio for our most potent bio-fuels is only 7x1. That's one hell of a shortfall. That's the only reasonable solution for the energy crisis. Unfortunately, industry wants to hold out, without change, for as long as possible. They like the status-quo. Car manufacturers, as a prime example, do things like buy up or prevent the implementation of mass transit to force greater car sales. One example. Overpopulation? That's an easy one. We do nothing. Nature already has built-in safeguards for such things. History, once again, is rife with examples of civilizations out-growing their food supplies. May favorite is Egypt. Don't doubt thought that, sooner or later, your vaccinations will make you sterile.
The energy companies own the regulators/legislators (regulatory capture) and will continue to own them so long as it's in their interest. Prohibition won't fix this issue either. Taking power away from government regulators is our best bet. Private companies in conjuction with a semi-reasonable court system can regulate energy companies, especially if their is a demand for such regulation. The shortfall will decrease as oil becomes more scarce. Remember your thought experiment with the bacteria?
Anyone who doubts overpopulation is a problem NOW, please see: See that curve? That is called exponential function. See my simple explaination of this in my posts above. It's the same for population growth as it is for oil consumption - space is finite, and we are doubling at a very determinable interval... See here: Doubling time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Exponential function is not something the human brain is wired to grasp. Neither is demise.
I understand exponential functions. I also understand that population doesn't have to continue increasing at an exponential rate. I still don't think 'overpopulation' is the biggest problem we face, especially right now.
I respect your opinion and appreciate your input. I cant think of many problems tough that doesn't link directly back to some amount of humanity wanting more of something of insufficient quantity. Whether in the eye of the beholder or otherwise, most problems deal with insufficiency, or overabundance. Starvation - insufficiency. Pandemic - overabundance. Flat out, the most likey was for a human to die. The more people we have sharing space, the more likely on both counts. Both are problems of quantity. Politics, government, economics - all solutions to many people wanting and needing the same, finite resources. Where will we be in 15 years with 14 billion people, all wanting to drive cars? I guess meteorites wouldn't qualify, but whatever.