Hi again Taikun. I have returned. It was a little tricky finding this post due to the new system in SI.
<<Food is not a problem anywhere on Earth.>
How about in the Sudan, where people are dying in big numbers and the UN and other nations are airlifting food. Is obesity a problem there? How about animals that are bordering on extinction-their numbers decreasing along with their habitat? Is the extinction of the Platipus some conspiracy? How about the threat to the Bengal tiger? There is no way we have the resources to carry the entire human population AND maintain all the species and the cleanliness of the air and water and eradicate disease and malnutrition.
We have a choice: shorter life spans/lower standards of living or maintaining reserves of raw materials.
Of course, your retort will be "Oh, that's a political problem that can be solved with money">
You are quite right that I will say that it's a political problem. However, it doesn't take money to solve. I would be happy for Sudan to cede sovereignty to me as King, Sovereign, Emperor and He Who Is To Be Obeyed and I will solve their problems free of charge. I won't even require a palace and stuff.
You know though that they wouldn't accept that because they enjoy their carnage [the ones doing the carnage]. They don't want to be interrupted.
Obesity is certainly not much of a problem in Sudan. It's too hot to be fat for a start. Plus there's the political problem of idiot criminals running the show with idiot criminals being run.
On the animals, I think you segued onto another topic there, with the platypus being an Australia beast, not Sudanese. On the Bengal tiger, I imagine the people living in the vicinity who are likely to be dinner would quite like them to be extinct. They are vicious brutes and like eating people if they can get hold of them. Similarly, Great White Sharks and Killer Whales [commonly called cute little Orca dolphins these days]. The fewer there are of sharks the better in my book. If there are no more Great Whites and other varieties, good riddance say I. I don't think we will be successful at eliminating them though as they have too many places to hide.
As I said, the problem with food, malnutrition and disease is a matter of political will, not technological, or commercial wherewithal.
Also, clean air is easy! The more people there are, the easier it is to keep the air clean, as better technologies can be developed. Unit costs of developments reduce with more people.
Same with disease. We have much lower unit costs for research now, with 6 billion people benefiting, than 100 years ago when few benefited from technology development and there weren't enough people to support many researchers. As a hobby, $ill Gates is funding heaps of disease attacks. That didn't happen in the 'good' old days, when pestilence, disease and malnutrition wracked the world regularly and life expectancy was nearer 20 than 80.
The next big thing to happen [after chicken flu epidemics] is a huge reduction in human population as a matter of choice. Women have, for a few decades, been having fewer and fewer children. It's now certain that the human population will drop dramatically this century.
I expect that there will also be a big quality improvement during that century as genetic engineering and filtering clear out a lot of dross.
We aren't short of capital. People just choose to spend their money on things that they want, such as booze and smokes and toy cars and stuff. Human management is spent on Coca Cola, racing cars, boats and all sorts of stuff. If the Sudanese want some good management, there's plenty of people who would be willing to do it for them. But they prefer their own mess.
<Do you think for a moment that even if Western nations deployed huge capital resources-impoverishing their nations in the process-that we could green the sahara, clean the Black Sea or refreeze the ice caps?
Your statement does not even help us try to move to a solution.>
First, I need a problem. I'm not worried about the North Pole melting. I think it is probably a good thing. That would make shipping through there really easy. China, Japan etc to Europe or Eastern USA would involve a quick trip through the Bering Straits and through the Arctic Ocean. Great!
If the Black Sea is dirty, it'll self-clean if they stop putting goop in it. It will only take a decade. Nature pretty soon buries human efforts. Even Manukau Harbour, which was thriving when I was 14, and dead when I was 40, [around Onehunga and Mangere] is coming rapidly back to life since they stopped poisoning it with all sorts of goop.
Greening the Sahara, Oz etc are easy. Just cover huge acreages with photovoltaic panels on 3 metre poles and plant in the shade under them. Use some of the electricity to deionize and pump irrigation water, and power the agricultural equipment with hydrogen. Use the oxygen to burn the waste cellulose and stuff for more power, or processing to polymers or something, or do something else with it.
We will have longer lifespans, higher standards of living, more of us [until the population starts dropping, which might happen unpleasantly soon due to chicken flu catastrophe, or a bolide splash-down and tsunami death around the Pacific [or Atlantic].
There are heaps of natural resources. They are still wasting time digging for gold and diamonds and stuff, we have so much spare capacity. We've got heaps of iron, aluminium and other stuff. Oil is expensive now, so all sorts of alternatives will be kicking in, taking market share.
No worries mate.
Mqurice |
