Re: What would you do to save the environment?

In article <1190997220.081702.15110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Damien Valentine <valends3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 27, 4:13 pm, Hardcow...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

But seriously, the idea is to optimize the ecology to maximize human
survivability. I'm sure life *as such* can go through hell or high
water, but it's not much use to us if we can't be here to enjoy it...

Oh, poo. That takes all the fun out of it...

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned a universal One Child Law like they
have in China. As long as the Earth has billions more human beings
than it can support, all the radioactive-waste-belching-nuke-plants
and impossible-city-sized-flying-solar-panels aren't going to do a
lick of good. Forests will still be cleared for farmland. Fisheries
are still going to be depleted. Mines are still going to be stripped.

You're focusing on the wrong problem. The only reason why
so much of the Earth's surface is devoted to feeding humans is because
we use amazingly inefficient ways to turn sunlight into the chemical
bonds we use. A human runs off of about 100 Watts and each m^2 of the
Earth gets about 210 Watts (taking into account things like albedo
and night). 6.5x10^9 people could be run off the sunlight that falls on
a patch of land less than 60 kilometers on an edge.

What we need are more efficient methods of creating food.



--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What would you do to save the environment?
    ... we use amazingly inefficient ways to turn sunlight into the chemical ... Earth gets about 210 Watts (taking into account things like albedo ... where's my magic food pill? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: science sourcess
    ... Earth does would be about the temperature of liquid oxygen, ... turning food into useful forms of energy). ... Say we lose half the power because we're idiots and then ... That means for every watt in a form useful to human meat, 40 watts ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Does Anyone in Los Angeles Know This Guy?
    ... The average crustal heat flow over the entire Earth is 87 miliwatts per square ... daily average of about 340 watts per square meter of solar radiation ... ... 2.4 Watts per square meter are at present rates of global warming due to ...
    (alt.machines.cnc)
  • Re: physics for ex-farmers
    ... transmission of 8 watts of radio waves so as to communicate with earth! ...
    (uk.business.agriculture)
  • Re: physics for ex-farmers
    ... transmission of 8 watts of radio waves so as to communicate with earth! ...
    (uk.business.agriculture)