Putting off solutions like this is laughable now (maybe less so than before), but with an ever-increasing world population it becomes more apparent that efficient systems can make a huge environmental impact in the right direction.
None of this will make any difference if the religions and governments of the world keep brainwashing people to breed for god and country.
Unless we lose a few hundred million people, we're looking at extinction, no matter what car you drive or how long you fiddle with your garbage. No matter what.
It's lose the fanatics or face extinction. I say we lose the fanaticism, but shit, what fun would that be?
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. -Albert Einstein
Posts: 19176 | Location: my happy place. | Registered: February 17, 2004
More along the lines of its a biological imperative.
No denying there's only so much to go around. Which I think is my point; through better application of existing technologies, limited resources could go much further. For example, its pretty much decided that the net effect of growing fuel in America is a loss. The impact is increased food prices, decreased prosperity, and who knows what else. Still here we go rushing headlong after it.
There was a time when we thought we'd run out of tin. It was to be a disaster. But things changed, processes improved, and now all that stuff is made from aluminum. Free thinkers and creative minds saved us.
I think your "one child per family" might not be the big idea the world is waiting for. Why limit families? Why not just kill people at random when the population gets too high for you? Like _Logan's Run_ only with some variation to keep things spicy. We could boil the heavy ones down for oil.
Short of advocating meddling in other countries affairs, I'm more focused on what the U.S. could do to make the situation better. There's no arguing we have room for improvement. Our contribution to the growth of the world population is on the decline but we still consume so much in its resources. The real crime is that we do it so inefficiently.
The only excuse for it that I can come up with is complacency and ignorance.
Originally posted by OpticalVoodoo: There was a time when we thought we'd run out of tin. It was to be a disaster. But things changed, processes improved, and now all that stuff is made from aluminum. Free thinkers and creative minds saved us.
I think your "one child per family" might not be the big idea the world is waiting for. Why limit families? Why not just kill people at random when the population gets too high for you? Like _Logan's Run_ only with some variation to keep things spicy. We could boil the heavy ones down for oil.
Think about how much energy an aluminum plant uses.
And about all the random violence we see in a day.
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. -Albert Einstein
Posts: 19176 | Location: my happy place. | Registered: February 17, 2004
A decade ago, census demographers estimated that the U.S. population, which topped 300 million in 2006, would not surpass 400 million until sometime after midcentury. Now, they are projecting that the population will top 400 million in 2039 and reach 439 million in 2050.
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. -Albert Einstein
Posts: 19176 | Location: my happy place. | Registered: February 17, 2004
Those projections don't dispute that the rate of growth in the U.S. is declining.
quote:
Two years later, when all the baby boomers will have turned 65, nearly 20 percent of Americans, compared with fewer than 13 percent today, will be over 65. By 2050, about 89 million Americans will be in that group, more than double the number today.
I figure whatever contribution the U.S. makes to the world population growth will be keeping old farts alive. For example, from those forecasts, the U.S. population under 45 years old will have declined from 65% to 55%.
its pretty much decided that the net effect of growing fuel in America is a loss. The impact is increased food prices, decreased prosperity, and who knows what else. Still here we go rushing headlong after it.
corn is the worste thing to use for ethanol but the farmers are actually the evil here. They have some pretty powerful lobbyists making corn the 18 gallon per acre solution.
palm oil equals 700-800 gallons per acre...
algae is 20,000 gallons per acre before you grow it vertically like these guys. They have beat the problems like other algae getting in, too much water use, by making it a closed system.
The 2008 season could see as many as 14 to 18 named storms in, of which seven to 10 are expected to become hurricanes, including three to six major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher, according to the US National Oceanography and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
quote:
The future looks even more bleak in the wake of a pioneering study three years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which linked an increase in hurricane activity to rises in ocean temperature caused by global warming and climate change.
It was announced today that a new tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic that has high probability of forming into a hurricane, and the open stretch of ocean makes it likely to develop into a major storm. It's followed closely by several tropical waves forming off of Africa.
I'm fairly prepared for weathering the post-storm (water, batteries, food, etc). But if it's a likely category 3, then I'm not sticking around for it to become a 4 or 5 instead. The problem South Floridians face is that with two principle principal highways headed out of the peninsula, evacuation is a bitch.
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