CO2 output must cease altogether, studies warn

[ray245]

Surely we are not going to continue using the petroleum and fossil fuel all the way in the future?

We could link Solar photovoltaics directly to the farm for energy?

With a increased global temperature, you might as well make better use of the extra heat energy for something...

Feel free to point it out why this can't work.

[The Spartan]

Surely we are not going to continue using the petroleum and fossil fuel all the way in the future?

We could link Solar photovoltaics directly to the farm for energy?

With a increased global temperature, you might as well make better use of the extra heat energy for something...

Feel free to point it out why this can't work.

I never said anything about fossil fuels. The fact of the matter is that all of our replacements are not nearly as efficient as petrochem. And nuclear is problematic because of the NIMBYs and because we also have to build the infrastructure to support all those plants and because we need several hundred of them in the US alone.

Solar panels are only about 10% effecient. Which means it makes more sense to simply plant the crops rather than to plant, say, an acre of crops indoors supported by mulitple acres of panels to just replace the sun light. And that doesn't include other things like the pumps for water. Or having additional panels to support things like food storage and, in large buildings, air circulation.

How are you going to make use of that heat energy? Globally, yes it's huge, but locally you don't get that much extra heat out of it and you'd need to expend energy to extract it from the atmosphere for a net loss.

[Broomstick]

A little bit like hydroponic or aeroponic( spelling?) farms. But different in a sense that the farm can be a multi-storey building.

Well, you can do multi-story hydroponics now. Or a cheap basement set up like my dad had for over a decade in our basement. However, hydroponics are very labor intensive and care must be taken to avoid fungul and other undesirable growth. After every harvest we had to sterilize the inert medium the plants needed for stable roots. My father did this with a propane torch. Not very saving on the petroleum products, is that? Of course, I'm sure we could come up with an alternative to that. Our set up used a gravity-feed system to feed/water the plants, but used human labor to "reset" the system. No problem for a small scale set up, but for industrial scale farming that would represent and enormous labor cost. Automating the system would make it more efficient, but where does the power to automate then come from?

Sunlight, temperature, humdity and amount of 'rainfall' can be controlled. Where enviromental factors for growing crops can be manipulated.

As pointed out, where does the energy come to run this system? The natural, outdoors farm uses natural forces for these (with imperfect consistency, as we all know).. In that sense, the power for an outdoor farm is "free" in that the rain falls and it gets warm in summer whether people are around or not.

Crops can be grown even during winter and etc. That way, one does not need to find a fertile land to provide enough food.

Crops will not grow without sunlight. One reason plants at high latitudes go dormant in winter is not just temperature, but also length of daylight. Where I live winter sunlight is only 1/3 of the 24 hours cycle for part of the year, which most crops would probably find minimal to insufficient. Where does the energy for supplemental light come from? Solar? But there's not enough sunlight during the part of the year that's dark, that's the problem!

You will also need to build the infrastructure for this farm, the building itself, the plumbing, the lighting, the ventilation, and maintain it all. You will need substrate for the plant roots, some sort of support for the plant structure, and that will need to be kept clean to avoid fungus taking over (I speak from experience - it was an ugly mistake in our basement that one time). You will need to supply the plants with nutrients somehow, which means processing it from something else. Unless you use compost, where you can harness biological processes for the work, but then you're back to dirt farming and you STILL have to supply a building, plumbing, light, etc.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but there ARE some obstacles to overcome. It's not as straightforward as it first appears.

We can grow plants inside buildings for decoration, why can't we grow crops in a multi-storey building for food?

When I worked in downtown Chicago - which I did at many different companies for over two decades - the practice was to contract with a service that, in addition to watering and maintaining the plants, would periodically replace them - because in the winter the sunlight the plants were getting were not adequate to maintain them, this applied even to plants placed next to windows, so after two months they'd start to fail and have to be wheeled out and replaced with fresh ones. Presumably the plants would be somehow rehabilitated in more favorable surrondings, Or something. I never really asked.

After all, if scientist say we can grow forest and etc inside a space station...why don't we just grow food inside a high-rise building?

Space stations are abundantly supplied with solar power, having no neighbors to object to collection arrays and no cloudy days to worry about. For that matter, no real atmosphere to block part of the energy. Yes, they do deal with a night period, but typically that's what, 90 minutes or a couple hours at most? The periods without sunlight are not nearly as prolonged as they are on Earth.

I should also point out that no one has actually grown a "forest" in space yet. We have no self-supporting space stations.

We could link Solar photovoltaics directly to the farm for energy?

Not all areas are equally suited to use of solar power. One can use it in a limited fashion in my area, but there are limitations due to the number of overcast days (not only from large-scale weather patterns but also as a lake effect microclimate) and the short hours of daylight in winter. I'm not saying its impossible, or that it wouldn't be useful for some things, but solar will not be a global solution.

With a increased global temperature, you might as well make better use of the extra heat energy for something...

One of the problems of, say, greenhouses is getting rid of excess heat. Again, not an insurmountable problem (and solar-powered ventilation fans are catching on around here, as they will function well on hot, clear, sunny afternoons when the need for cooling is greatest) but too much heat is as bad for plants as it is for animals.

Feel free to point it out why this can't work.

Won't say it CAN'T work - just that it's not nearly as easy as it first appears.

[Mayabird]

Ray, I'm linking a page about a Japanese underground urban farm.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07 ... _urban.php

It seems to be pretty successful, going for a couple years and still working. I want you to look closely at the pictures, though. Do you notice how very, very many lights are hanging up and around those plants? That is a LOT of energy, not even counting the energy for pumping the water, circulating the air, and so on.

Saying "we'll use solar energy!" is basically trying to thwart thermodynamics. Instead of getting all the sunlight for plants on farmland, you're going to use inefficient solar panels that'll power lights elsewhere. Yeah.

Now, something like farm this would work great in a place like Iceland. They can get plenty of heating and clean energy from geothermal sources, so who cares if they're shining lights all the long dark winter day and night? (They can also take advantage of the long summer days for surface crops in greenhouses.) It won't work in places where you don't have that kind of cheap, clean energy (well, you could use burn coal, but that's kinda defeating the purpose here of this thread). It's not a magical silver bullet.

[ray245]

Hmm...but it seems to me, even if global warming make energy resources even more precious, shouldn't a large portion of our energy output be directed to agriculture pratices?

After all, humans can't survive without food and water.


Hmm...then do anyone else have a better solution on how we solve the food production problems in the light of global warming?

[The Spartan]

Hmm...but it seems to me, even if global warming make energy resources even more precious, shouldn't a large portion of our energy output be directed to agriculture pratices?

Yes. But that doesn't then translate into moving to inefficient methods of production. (Obviously, what constitutes inefficient varies from region to region)

After all, humans can't survive without food and water.

Hmm...then do anyone else have a better solution on how we solve the food production problems in the light of global warming?

Supplementing farm grown food with "Victory Gardens." Wide scale: sustainable farming methods and converting more acres of arable land to food production. No more industrial farming; it will have to end one way or the other since no top soil=no food crops. The unfortunate part is that a not insubstantial portion of the human race will likely starve to death or be killed in wars for resources, including food, water and arable farmland. Especially with potable water becoming a more scarce commodity.

[ray245]

So bascially, we will still need to conduct even more research on more efficient and effective food production methods?

Perhaps it is time for humans to live in megacities, a single building that acts as a entire city.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

[Ghost Rider]

So bascially, we will still need to conduct even more research on more efficient and effective food production methods?

Perhaps it is time for humans to live in megacities, a single building that acts as a entire city.

Which costs...guess what!

Time and energy.

You do understand the point, right? So far people have been pounding this into your head, and you keep blurting out one liners of wishful thinking maybes.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

Sure, we'll waste trillions on something that won't be as efficent as something on the planet .

Do you fucking read the other posters or just simply argue with yourself?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

So bascially, we will still need to conduct even more research on more efficient and effective food production methods?

Perhaps it is time for humans to live in megacities, a single building that acts as a entire city.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

The only way we can possibly cut our carbon footprint fast enough is that if 80% to 90% of the people currently alive on this planet were to die/be magicked away by Q/whatever. That's literally the only way, after which you can indulge in as much wishful thinking and careful technocratic planning as you'd like. And the more pessimistic climate change scenarios are probably going to do away with a third of the planet's population before the century is out, because that third sits in areas where climate change will hit the hardest, and they're too poor to leave.

Building farming towers or artificial farms, or space farms or any of these other ridiculous ideas you've posited are on the order of 20% to 30% efficient, compared to farming out on open land. Meaning you're going to triple, quadruple, quintuple the amount of resources invested and energy input per unit of output. Want to increase the amount of food and water available to everyone? Drastically cut the consumption of meat for everyone but the ultra-rich. And I mean ultra-rich by First World standards. Livestock consume huge quantities of grain and water that would be better used on people. We're destroying the biodiversity of the oceans by gross overfishing, and it's only getting worse, because fisheries are casting their nets deeper and wider to fish out edible fish from ever increasing segments of the ocean because they've wiped out all the traditional fishing stocks.

[ray245]

So bascially, we will still need to conduct even more research on more efficient and effective food production methods?

Perhaps it is time for humans to live in megacities, a single building that acts as a entire city.

Which costs...guess what!

Time and energy.

You do understand the point, right? So far people have been pounding this into your head, and you keep blurting out one liners of wishful thinking maybes.

So conducting more research is a bad thing? Perhaps you can have more and better ideas on how we can have more efficent food production method.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

Sure, we'll waste trillions on something that won't be as efficent as something on the planet .

Do you fucking read the other posters or just simply argue with yourself?

Well, what people said in earlier post was that space stations will recieve more solar energy as compared to earth.

And instead of simply ripping my post apart and telling me that I'm wrong , why don't we discuss over other methods to increase farm output, with a more efficient method?

Yes, I have alot of wishful thinking, but to me, it is better than simply sit there and say that we are screwed. The idea of having more people starving to death does not appeal to me at all.

We can't just sit there and do nothing while global warming starts to affect our daily lives.

Surely with our ability to developed new technology and all the stuff we can achieve, we can lessen the damage done by global warming?

Yes, we are harming the planet, but earth will be around even if humanity is extinct. Didn't mass extinction event happen before in the past?

Somehow, I believe that global warming will not be the bane of all our technological development. There is always a way to solve global warming, it is just whether can we discover that method, and achieve those methods in time.

Much better than simply accepting it is too late and nothing can be done at all.

I believe that ways to lessen the damage of global warming. That is much better than what the general public is viewing global warming at the momment. That either it does not exist, or it exist and accepting that it can cause large amount of destruction and that's it.

Why can't people adopt a more postive view in regards to global warming?

[ray245]

Can someone edit my post so that people will not mistake my words with ghostrider's?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

So conducting more research is a bad thing? Perhaps you can have more and better ideas on how we can have more efficent food production method.

Is it just me, or are you just stupid? Let's put it in bold letters, maybe you need glasses. The methods you propose are NOT more efficient, they are LESS efficient. This has been explained to you with all the patience one shows an especially slow child. But even the slow ones usually get it by now.

Well, what people said in earlier post was that space stations will recieve more solar energy as compared to earth.

But those same people also said that subjecting plants to raw solar radiation in space will kill them. You will need to shield them from much of that. Not to mention provide the sort of environment they'd need to properly grow. In short, you'll need your space farms to have closed-cycle life-support systems, adding complexity to the station. Complexity which costs mass. Every godsdamned kilogram of mass you put up into Earth orbit requires 62 megajoules of energy to get it there. This is assuming 100% efficiency, which is the kind of assumption that is made only in grade-school physics courses. (Yes, with sufficient time, we could build the farms in orbit with material extracted from the Moon or near-Earth asteroids. But you still have to get the construction equipment into orbit, and provide it with the delta-V to get to the Moon, or to the asteroids.) There is also the slight problem of getting your space-based hydroponic crops down to Earth. Unless space elevators become possible someday, you're going to have to build a vehicle capable of withstanding reentry, and capable of landing safely. It'd be stupid to build them in space and drop them down to Earth, because now you're littering the planet with used space-trucks, so you have to send the damned things back up . . . at 62 MJ/kg. And if everyone consumed a kilogram of food per day (this is grossly optimistic, since what you're sending down are minimally processed grains and vegetables,) you'd have to get 6.5 million tons of food per day down to Earth. (This, of course, assumes we export all our food production to space. And yes, we have to then supply the space farms with 6.5 million tons of new organic material that's going to have to come from somewhere.)

And instead of simply ripping my post apart and telling me that I'm wrong , why don't we discuss over other methods to increase farm output, with a more efficient method?

I already did that. Take the grain that would go to livestock and feed it to people instead, and severely curtail meat consumption. Instant gains all around, and instant reduction in carbon footprint. Everybody's happy. Except the ranchers.

Yes, I have alot of wishful thinking, but to me, it is better than simply sit there and say that we are screwed. The idea of having more people starving to death does not appeal to me at all.

We are fucked one way or the other. Anyone who thinks otherwise is taking dried frog pills. We're long past the point where we can painlessly sidestep disaster. What's being discussed is damage control.

We can't just sit there and do nothing while global warming starts to affect our daily lives.

Lovely little strawman there. Nobody here is suggesting that we do nothing.

Surely with our ability to developed new technology and all the stuff we can achieve, we can lessen the damage done by global warming?

Yes, but it's still going to hurt. A lot. Lots of people will starve to death, or die from diseases, or as collateral damage in resource-driven warfare. The only question we really have any control over is "How many?"

Yes, we are harming the planet, but earth will be around even if humanity is extinct. Didn't mass extinction event happen before in the past?

I'm not precisely sure what you're getting at here. Yes, they've happened before. No, they're not pleasant. No, I'd just as soon not have my species be one of those claimed in this latest one, thank you very much.

Somehow, I believe that global warming will not be the bane of all our technological development. There is always a way to solve global warming, it is just whether can we discover that method, and achieve those methods in time.

Much better than simply accepting it is too late and nothing can be done at all.

Keep beating that strawman. Nobody here is claiming that nothing can be done. Yes it's too late to stop it, and no, it's not a problem for which a magical technological solution exists (at least no technological solution for which the backfire-potential is low enough to consider employing without a larger control group.) There is a lot we can do to limit the final impact and severity of global warming, but that's really about it.

Why can't people adopt a more postive view in regards to global warming?

This is about the most positive view achievable without becoming unglued from reality.

[ray245]

Is it just me, or are you just stupid? Let's put it in bold letters, maybe you need glasses. The methods you propose are NOT more efficient, they are LESS efficient. This has been explained to you with all the patience one shows an especially slow child. But even the slow ones usually get it by now.

Did I reject anyone saying my ideas are less efficient? I'm simply saying now that perhaps we should do more research? That is what I am saying. All I'm saying is to conduct more research in regards to food production, which is not limited to my previous ideas.

I'm no longer arguing that my ideas are more efficient.

But those same people also said that subjecting plants to raw solar radiation in space will kill them. You will need to shield them from much of that. Not to mention provide the sort of environment they'd need to properly grow. In short, you'll need your space farms to have closed-cycle life-support systems, adding complexity to the station. Complexity which costs mass. Every godsdamned kilogram of mass you put up into Earth orbit requires 62 megajoules of energy to get it there. This is assuming 100% efficiency, which is the kind of assumption that is made only in grade-school physics courses. (Yes, with sufficient time, we could build the farms in orbit with material extracted from the Moon or near-Earth asteroids. But you still have to get the construction equipment into orbit, and provide it with the delta-V to get to the Moon, or to the asteroids.) There is also the slight problem of getting your space-based hydroponic crops down to Earth. Unless space elevators become possible someday, you're going to have to build a vehicle capable of withstanding reentry, and capable of landing safely. It'd be stupid to build them in space and drop them down to Earth, because now you're littering the planet with used space-trucks, so you have to send the damned things back up . . . at 62 MJ/kg. And if everyone consumed a kilogram of food per day (this is grossly optimistic, since what you're sending down are minimally processed grains and vegetables,) you'd have to get 6.5 million tons of food per day down to Earth. (This, of course, assumes we export all our food production to space. And yes, we have to then supply the space farms with 6.5 million tons of new organic material that's going to have to come from somewhere.)

This I will concede due to my lack of knowldege and not looking closely at people's previous post. Tell me if I'm wrong but, can't you use solar energy to power lights and heat sources first, which will in term supply energy to the plants?

I already did that. Take the grain that would go to livestock and feed it to people instead, and severely curtail meat consumption. Instant gains all around, and instant reduction in carbon footprint. Everybody's happy. Except the ranchers.

Well I was hoping for more ideas than that alone...but from what I understand, doesn't global warming reduces cultivable areas to a even lesser amount?

If that's the case, doesn't it make this a short term solution?

We are fucked one way or the other. Anyone who thinks otherwise is taking dried frog pills. We're long past the point where we can painlessly sidestep disaster. What's being discussed is damage control.

Which is what I am trying to get across...I said lessen the damage, not erase the damage completely. Surely there is ways to lessen damage? Decrease the amount of people starving due to global warming. You are talking about 1/3 of the entire world's population.

There should be ways to lessen that amount...

Lovely little strawman there. Nobody here is suggesting that we do nothing.

Yup, here is suggesting that we do nothing, but I don't see much people talking about ways to cope with it either. At the least, a majority of the poster here. Most people here are simply saying which of my ideas can or cannot work.

I was hoping that other than simply pointing out which of my idea can or cannot work, more people can give their ideas as well...

In the entire post, I think there is three other people posting their own ideas only.

Yes, but it's still going to hurt. A lot. Lots of people will starve to death, or die from diseases, or as collateral damage in resource-driven warfare. The only question we really have any control over is "How many?"

Which is exactly what I have said in the previous post...how to LESSEN the damage. Other than a simple yes, I was hoping you have some ideas yourself...

I'm not precisely sure what you're getting at here. Yes, they've happened before. No, they're not pleasant. No, I'd just as soon not have my species be one of those claimed in this latest one, thank you very much.

This post is mainly directed to those people who are trying to preserve the current or past sistuation, where we can keep what we have. Those people that keep thinking that saving the planet means we need to keep all the species we have on earth alive together with humans.

I'm saying instead of diverting so much time and effort into saving every single species on earth currently, we may as well save those that will affect humans directly.

Those that are of more concern to humans. People keep harping on the idea of saving the planet, instead of saving humanity. We don't need save the planet, and as history can tell us, earth has experience mass extinction events before. The issue should be saving humanity and our technology.

Keep beating that strawman. Nobody here is claiming that nothing can be done. Yes it's too late to stop it, and no, it's not a problem for which a magical technological solution exists (at least no technological solution for which the backfire-potential is low enough to consider employing without a larger control group.) There is a lot we can do to limit the final impact and severity of global warming, but that's really about it.

Well...I phrase this part of the post slightly wrongly. I'm hoping for more ways to cope (that should be the right word for the post above) to global warming. That even *IF we cannot see any possible or effective solution in the near future, we should no abandon our efforts to find one.

Basically in the face of a diaster, keep yourself alive first, but still think of ways to get out of the diaster. And after all, some ideas are not easy to think of...sometimes, a new way to solve things can come from a unexpected source or area.

This is about the most positive view achievable without becoming unglued from reality.

Because as humans, I doubt we like the current methods available to cope to global warming. Basically keep on dreaming of new ideas while making use of the current methods to cope to global warming.

Don't stop dreaming of a day where we can reach back to our current standard of living in most first world country somewhere in the future, while being aware and carry out what can be done.


That is the view I am adopting. Because I feel that to most people, they all want their hope to be a very good one. Simply accepting current methods to cope to global warming isn't enough for them to carry out their actions.

[Broomstick]

So bascially, we will still need to conduct even more research on more efficient and effective food production methods?

Perhaps it is time for humans to live in megacities, a single building that acts as a entire city.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

The only way we can possibly cut our carbon footprint fast enough is that if 80% to 90% of the people currently alive on this planet were to die/be magicked away by Q/whatever. That's literally the only way, after which you can indulge in as much wishful thinking and careful technocratic planning as you'd like

Actually, 80-90% of the people on Earth dying will cause a huge carbon burp as their corpses decompose... there really isn't a neat, clean way out of this. (The Q solution is... interesting but even if I'm a NeoPagan I don't believe in that sort of magic).

Ray, your idea of "controlled environment farms" isn't totally useless. WHERE there is abundant power of some sort the idea can work. Iceland, for example, has incredible geothermal resources that could be used for this sort of agriculture, which would greatly benefit Iceland. The Pacific Ring of Fire and other geothermal areas - including Yellowstone and Hawaii - could also utilize their local resources to provide power for that sort of very intensive agriculture. Although it seem an odd choice for Hawaii which already has a congenial climate, parts of Hawaii are quite arid and CEFs also can, if done properly, produce more food per area than convential agriculture - IF the energy to run them is there. That could become extremely important for an island chain far away from pretty much everywhere else in a world where transportation costs are soaring. Areas with hydro power, or where nuclear power is available, could likewise utilize this techonology. This could reduce the need to transport food to isolated areas, could reduce local shortages or even provide surpluses, and keep the human diet varied - but it will NOT save the entire world No ONE technology or solution is going to solve the many serious problems facing us.

So conducting more research is a bad thing? Perhaps you can have more and better ideas on how we can have more efficent food production method.

The problem is twofold: first, there is a limit to how much production you can squeeze out of given resources and second, we may have reached that limit already.

Or, push for development of a space park. Instead of talking about going to mars or moon, start and push for space parks to be established and supply us with food as well...

Our space technology is not up to that particular challenge at the moment. IF we devote the resources to getting it up to snuff we might be able to achieve that in a decade or two but the cost will be enormous and the resources have to come from somewhere.

Well, what people said in earlier post was that space stations will recieve more solar energy as compared to earth.

True, however, space stations require enormous cost to build and maintain, simply enormous, even for non-self-sufficient habitats the size of a mobile home. What you're talking about is orders of magnitude larger. We just don't have that capacity right now.

And instead of simply ripping my post apart and telling me that I'm wrong , why don't we discuss over other methods to increase farm output, with a more efficient method?

What if we already have the most efficient methods?

Our present way of producing food is actually NOT supportable long term. We are "mining" the fertility of the soil faster than natural processes can replace it, which is why there is the necessity for artificial fertizliers. These are, at the moment, predominantly of petroleum origin when you get down to raw materials. There are some natural substitutes, such a various guanos, composting, etc. but such natural produced, renewable/renewing products are not produced fast enough by natural processes to meet current demand. Meaning, post peak oil the global agricultural production will fall. We are probably experiencing Peak Agriculture as well as Peak Oil. Attempts to force continued production at current levels will permanently reduce soil fertility. Sustainable agriculture is, truly, possible but at lower prodcution levels than we currently have.

And, really, that's the crux of the problem. We can't sustain our current level of consumption. That, and there really are just too damn many human beings for the good of the environment. I've said it before, if 3/4 of the world's population disappeared so would most of these other problems. There would be food, water, and oil enough for everyone. Problem is, who the hell would want to live through the sort of disaster that would drop the population level like that?

We can't just sit there and do nothing while global warming starts to affect our daily lives.

True. And brainstorming doesn't hurt, but not every wonderful idea is feasible.

Surely with our ability to developed new technology and all the stuff we can achieve, we can lessen the damage done by global warming?

It is possible that we could lessen the damage. There is no guarantee that humanity's collective actions won't make it worse, however.

Although not perfect, I recommend you read Jared Diamond's Collapse for a discussion of how human societies can make either good or bad decisions when confronted with such survival issues. He discusses past societies, some of which did not survive, or that experienced severe population crashes with much reduced lifestyles for the survivors. There are also some societies that made better choices and continue to exist. In no case, however, was the adjustment easy.

I already did that. Take the grain that would go to livestock and feed it to people instead, and severely curtail meat consumption. Instant gains all around, and instant reduction in carbon footprint. Everybody's happy. Except the ranchers.

Well I was hoping for more ideas than that alone...but from what I understand, doesn't global warming reduces cultivable areas to a even lesser amount?

It's not quite as easy as "take the food given to livestock and give it to people". For one thing, cattle and certain other animals can convert plants materials humans can't digest, such as grass, into a form people can eat (meat). IF that is what is done, then livestock actually increases available human food - but that's a big if. So, where subsistence herders truly feed their animals on grass or shrubbery inedible to humans that's a net gain - the problem is in places like North America where cattle are feed grain that could be eaten by humans instead. That reduces food available to humans and isn't healthy for the planet or humanity long term. In other words, a reduction in the animal protein the average westerner eats is what is needed, not necessarialy a total elimination. The fact that humans do seem to need a minimal amount of animal derieved food for health also means that turning the world into vegetarians is not the solution, either.

Second, it's debatable if global warming is going to really reduce the arable land area of the planet or not. For places that are losers there will also be places, such as Canada and Finland, that will gain a longer growing season, more agricultural capacity, and with the retreat of permanent ice, perhaps more arable land. What is certain is that the "breadbasket" regions of the planet will change - where we grow a particular food will change.

Which is what I am trying to get across...I said lessen the damage, not erase the damage completely. Surely there is ways to lessen damage? Decrease the amount of people starving due to global warming. You are talking about 1/3 of the entire world's population.

There should be ways to lessen that amount...

I sure hope there is a way to soften the landing after the fall... but losing 1/3 of the world's population may, in fact, be an optimistic number. There have been human civilizations that have exceeded their resources and collapsed before. There have been cases where no one survived, although more typically something emerges from the ruins. Most likely, the human race will survive, but since this has never happened on a global scale before we don't really know how bad this will get.

There are also some major, major cultural and social obstacles that have nothing to do with agriculture that are, even now, becoming serious problems. For instance, the most humane solution to overpopulation would be to drastically cut the birthrate and allow the population to fall through natural attrition due to illness, accidents, and old age. This shows signs of occuring already in China through its one-child policy as well as Japan and Europe due to other socio-economic forces. On a certain level that's good, because we need to have fewer people and this way no one has to die in a war over resources or due to pestilence or starvation. The problem is that this results in a society which is top heavy with the old - which is unprecedented in human history. Until now, there have always been ample young, working people to support the few elderly - what happens when the elderly outnumber the young which is an inevitable outcome to the current situation in China, Europe, and Japan? I suppose we could raise the retirement age, make people work longer, but the fact is middle-aged and elderly people can't do as much labor as the young and healthy. There is NO social framework in place to deal with this.

The bottom line is that the human race is facing, or will soon face, a global crisis with little or no past experience with which to draw upon. Now, I am an optimist and I do believe we'll emerge out the other end, but the ride through the bottleneck could be, frankly, quite hideous. I am fully in favor of mitigating the pain, but we have to collectively realize that there is NOT a one size fits all solution.

[Singular Intellect]

Articles like this reinforce my conviction that any attempt to raise a family in our world situation is a very bad idea.

[Strider]

It's increasingly looking like the best survival strategy in the middle term future is going to be fleeing the Earth like a sinking ship. If the positive feedback stuff is true it might be the ONLY strategy.

This is saying a lot, because the amount of man hours and money required to get anyone off planet permanently and with some degree of sustainability is absolutely insane; however, stopping the world culture inertia from destroying the planet entirely may be orders of magnitude more difficult than that even. Short of World War III, I don't see China and India cutting back enough to make a difference.

[NeoGoomba]

I can't remember if I read about it here or somewhere else, but isn't there a prototype (or more than one) skyscraper farm being developed somewhere to try and aid urban areas in food production? From what I recall, they were designed to maximize their growing space by going vertical, plus had some sort of solar power aspect to them. Something like that, if economically viable, would be clutch for areas distant from farmlands in the coming years.

Megacities here we come!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

But those same people also said that subjecting plants to raw solar radiation in space will kill them. You will need to shield them from much of that. Not to mention provide the sort of environment they'd need to properly grow. In short, you'll need your space farms to have closed-cycle life-support systems, adding complexity to the station. Complexity which costs mass. Every godsdamned kilogram of mass you put up into Earth orbit requires 62 megajoules of energy to get it there. This is assuming 100% efficiency, which is the kind of assumption that is made only in grade-school physics courses. (Yes, with sufficient time, we could build the farms in orbit with material extracted from the Moon or near-Earth asteroids. But you still have to get the construction equipment into orbit, and provide it with the delta-V to get to the Moon, or to the asteroids.) There is also the slight problem of getting your space-based hydroponic crops down to Earth. Unless space elevators become possible someday, you're going to have to build a vehicle capable of withstanding reentry, and capable of landing safely. It'd be stupid to build them in space and drop them down to Earth, because now you're littering the planet with used space-trucks, so you have to send the damned things back up . . . at 62 MJ/kg. And if everyone consumed a kilogram of food per day (this is grossly optimistic, since what you're sending down are minimally processed grains and vegetables,) you'd have to get 6.5 million tons of food per day down to Earth. (This, of course, assumes we export all our food production to space. And yes, we have to then supply the space farms with 6.5 million tons of new organic material that's going to have to come from somewhere.)

This I will concede due to my lack of knowldege and not looking closely at people's previous post. Tell me if I'm wrong but, can't you use solar energy to power lights and heat sources first, which will in term supply energy to the plants?

Yes, but you proceed to throw away something like, are you ready for this, 97% of the energy in the form of waste heat. Solar panels are only so efficient (20% in bleeding-edge research prototypes,) and get less efficient with time. Then you have resistive and inductive losses in the wiring and power circuitry You have more losses putting the power into and retrieving it from batteries (85% efficiency if we assume lead-acid batteries.) And then the light sources are only 15% efficient (for fluorescent lighting.)

I already did that. Take the grain that would go to livestock and feed it to people instead, and severely curtail meat consumption. Instant gains all around, and instant reduction in carbon footprint. Everybody's happy. Except the ranchers.

Well I was hoping for more ideas than that alone...but from what I understand, doesn't global warming reduces cultivable areas to a even lesser amount?

This is why we, as a species, ought to stop wasting so much acreage on feeding livestock, and such retarded notions like bio-fuels. Yes, humans need meat and animal proteins for optimum survival, but nowhere near as much as we're consuming now.

We are fucked one way or the other. Anyone who thinks otherwise is taking dried frog pills. We're long past the point where we can painlessly sidestep disaster. What's being discussed is damage control.

Which is what I am trying to get across...I said lessen the damage, not erase the damage completely. Surely there is ways to lessen damage? Decrease the amount of people starving due to global warming. You are talking about 1/3 of the entire world's population.

There should be ways to lessen that amount...

No, there isn't. We're something like 2.7x over the planet's present carrying capacity as it is, and the coming energy resource crunch will only reduce the amount of energy we can throw at the problem. And most of that energy will already be spoken for, powering our frantic transition to sustainable energy supplies. Barring everyone in the First World magically agreeing to give up their cushy First World lifestyles tomorrow, losing a third of the world's population still puts us 1.8x over a sustainable carrying capacity.

Lovely little strawman there. Nobody here is suggesting that we do nothing.

Yup, here is suggesting that we do nothing, but I don't see much people talking about ways to cope with it either. At the least, a majority of the poster here. Most people here are simply saying which of my ideas can or cannot work.

We've an abundance of people for whom the most coping they can do is hunker down, live more spartan and ultra-energy-efficient lives and try not to have too many children.

Yes, but it's still going to hurt. A lot. Lots of people will starve to death, or die from diseases, or as collateral damage in resource-driven warfare. The only question we really have any control over is "How many?"

Which is exactly what I have said in the previous post...how to LESSEN the damage. Other than a simple yes, I was hoping you have some ideas yourself...

Already shared mine. The population of the planet has to be reduced by 80% to 90% as quickly as is possible without triggering the collapse of civilization in the process. After which, the surviving 1.3 billion people will be in a far more advantageous position as far as energy and other resources go, and the smaller, more efficient population, will have extra breathing room to explore the more-radical technological solutions. But even then, the civilization will have to be tightly micromanaged.

I'm saying instead of diverting so much time and effort into saving every single species on earth currently, we may as well save those that will affect humans directly.

Those that are of more concern to humans. People keep harping on the idea of saving the planet, instead of saving humanity. We don't need save the planet, and as history can tell us, earth has experience mass extinction events before. The issue should be saving humanity and our technology.

There's a niggling little question of how many living species you need to provide enough ecodiversity to generate stable ecologies. The existence of all species on Earth affect humans directly to some degree, as we have to live on the same planet in the same biosphere as they do. It's better to err on the side of caution, since we lack a backup in case we get it wrong. Humans don't live outside the system, so any attempt at saving us will require making the effort to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the biosphere, as humans are too large and resource-intensive to survive a really nasty mass-extinction.

[WesFox13]

You know, I think this is an important question. WHO would be the 1.5 billion that survive after this catastrophe? I mean we might see the complete dissapearence of whole nations from the globe. I think the survival of the species is sort of rooted in who survives.

[ray245]

Sad fact is most likely the countries that is most reponsible for causing it...the guilty party goes unpunished...simply because fate is good to them in a sense...

We have countries like china and india where people's lives are starting to improve, and before they can achieve the same standard most americans and other first world countries get, the damage done by First world country cause them to be a second world country indefinetly...

There are also some major, major cultural and social obstacles that have nothing to do with agriculture that are, even now, becoming serious problems. For instance, the most humane solution to overpopulation would be to drastically cut the birthrate and allow the population to fall through natural attrition due to illness, accidents, and old age. This shows signs of occuring already in China through its one-child policy as well as Japan and Europe due to other socio-economic forces. On a certain level that's good, because we need to have fewer people and this way no one has to die in a war over resources or due to pestilence or starvation. The problem is that this results in a society which is top heavy with the old - which is unprecedented in human history. Until now, there have always been ample young, working people to support the few elderly - what happens when the elderly outnumber the young which is an inevitable outcome to the current situation in China, Europe, and Japan? I suppose we could raise the retirement age, make people work longer, but the fact is middle-aged and elderly people can't do as much labor as the young and healthy. There is NO social framework in place to deal with this.

Unless we can somehow gentically engineered our older body to maintain the healthy level of a young adult for a longer time. Or we have rely even more on machinery...not that I'm happy about being over-reliant on machinery. I hate starting on a evolutionary path where human body become too reliant on machinery and weaker in structure.


And if we can raise the amount from 1.3-1.5 billion humans surviving global warming, to 2 billion, with little to no negative impact, that is a huge achievement.

Because I think that new workable ideas, ideas that no has has ever thought of before can come out with our human brain.

I doubt people living in the 19th century could see that we can travel to the moon in 100 years time. And in a hundred year time, I doubt we will stop discovering new ideas and etc.

Like I have said before, dreaming of new possiblity while doing what can be done realistically should be what everyone is aiming for.

One reason I think so many people has been in denial about global warming is because they don't want a worse lifestyle as compared to what they are enjoying now. If anyone can inspire hope that global warming can bring them a better lifestyle, people will be compelled to actually carry out what can be done to save our civilization.


And I hate any kind of doomsday sceanrio. If we can get pass the idea of a doomsday scenario via nuclear exchange between the soviet union and the US, there is a chance, no matter how minor that we can lessen the damage.

Because if humans try to be too realistic with what can be done, then our technology development will start to slow down.

That's my view.

[Broomstick]

Sad fact is most likely the countries that is most reponsible for causing it...the guilty party goes unpunished...simply because fate is good to them in a sense...

Until recently, say the last 50 years, no one had a clue that anything of this sort was happening. It is only even more recently that the average person became familiar with the term "global warming". While the industrialized nations bear major responsibility here this situation was caused more by ignorance than malice.

And yeah, life IS unfair.

We have countries like china and india where people's lives are starting to improve, and before they can achieve the same standard most americans and other first world countries get, the damage done by First world country cause them to be a second world country indefinetly...

I prefer to think "for an extended period of time" rather than "indefinitely". We don't know what the world will be like in 100 or 200 years. Sure, a massive die-off would be hellish to live but for the generations after life might become MUCH better because, with so many fewer people, there is much more to go around for everyone. Short-term, die-offs are terrible to the individual. Long term, they can be a good thing for the species as a whole.

There are also some major, major cultural and social obstacles that have nothing to do with agriculture that are, even now, becoming serious problems. For instance, the most humane solution to overpopulation would be to drastically cut the birthrate and allow the population to fall through natural attrition due to illness, accidents, and old age. This shows signs of occuring already in China through its one-child policy as well as Japan and Europe due to other socio-economic forces. On a certain level that's good, because we need to have fewer people and this way no one has to die in a war over resources or due to pestilence or starvation. The problem is that this results in a society which is top heavy with the old - which is unprecedented in human history. Until now, there have always been ample young, working people to support the few elderly - what happens when the elderly outnumber the young which is an inevitable outcome to the current situation in China, Europe, and Japan? I suppose we could raise the retirement age, make people work longer, but the fact is middle-aged and elderly people can't do as much labor as the young and healthy. There is NO social framework in place to deal with this.

Unless we can somehow gentically engineered our older body to maintain the healthy level of a young adult for a longer time.

We don't need genetic engineering for that - we have the knowledge already, and the means, to keep older people healthier and stronger. It's a matter of applying it. Here's how we do it:

1) Proper nutrition - meaning sufficient calories AND nutrients, but not too much of anything - from infancy through old age. Nutrional needs do change by age and gender, but this is not rocket science.

2) Physical exercise - this can be through manual labor, sports, or a health club type situation, but again neither too little nor too much.

3) Preventive health - this includes vaccines to prevent disease and proper screenings to detect potentially serious prolems early.

4) Proper health maintenance - that means if you DO find something treat it early to minimize damage and maximize health. It is entirely possible for many people with chronic health problems to maintain sufficent health to work at gainful employment and take care of themselves into old age - but only if they have the medical resources to manage their problems.

In actual fact, the average person 50 years of age today is MUCH healthier and in many ways "younger" than someone 50 years old would be in, say, the year 1600. That is one of the reasons more people are living longer - better nutrition, medicine that actually works, they don't go through a mild bought of scurvy every late winter/early spring when fresh fruits and vegetables are unavailable, their body isn't worn out by fighting one infectious disease or infection after another...

We have the means to significantly improve the health and strength of the middle-aged and elderly right now -- we just fail to apply it. And that's another problem with many of the proposed solutions: lack of will to apply them.

Or we have rely even more on machinery...not that I'm happy about being over-reliant on machinery. I hate starting on a evolutionary path where human body become too reliant on machinery and weaker in structure.

Too late - the genus homo started down that path long before we got to sapiens. It started when a remote ancestral species started knapping rocks and learning how to deliberately make fire to roast dinner.

And if we can raise the amount from 1.3-1.5 billion humans surviving global warming, to 2 billion, with little to no negative impact, that is a huge achievement.

That's an achievement only if the Earth can truly sustain 2 billion humans long term. I don't, personally, know what the ideal human population would be.

Because I think that new workable ideas, ideas that no has has ever thought of before can come out with our human brain.

Yes. but most people never have such a breakthrough. Just adding more randomly assorted people won't necessarily improve things.

I doubt people living in the 19th century could see that we can travel to the moon in 100 years time.

People actually were writing stories about traveling to the moon in the 19th Century. In fact, even earlier. Wikipedia has a list of such stories scroll down to "Science Fiction'. Some of the more well known 19th Century authors to tackle the idea were Edgar Allan Poe (1835), Jules Verne (1865 - utilizing a projectile launched from Florida and recovered from a landing in the ocean - nice guess, don't you think? AND 104 years prior to the first lunar landing!), and H.G. Wells (1901 - OK, 20th Century but darn close to 19th)

People have been imagining wonders for a long, long time. There is no lack of human imagination. The problem always seems to be getting actual technology to perform those wonders.

One reason I think so many people has been in denial about global warming is because they don't want a worse lifestyle as compared to what they are enjoying now.

It's not just that - they don't want a different lifestyle, even of the same quality. Sometimes not even of better quality.

Because if humans try to be too realistic with what can be done, then our technology development will start to slow down.

I suspect that at some point our technological development will slow regardless, as the past 100 years or so seems to have been an abnormally productive time for that sort of thing.

[Mr. T]

The public just doesn't seem to understand the magnitude of cuts required to stabilize the climate. We'd need to cut back emissions to equal our carbon sinks, and after that, continue cutting our emissions as our carbon sinks decline. Even if that happens now, we're still committed to some warming. Enough to cause some pretty serious damage.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Those sorts of measures are political suicide at best. Many jobs would be created for the new sustainable world order, but millions would be lost in industries that have no green equivalent.

People may hope Gore and co. will get people to see the light. Historical precedent, however, firmly validates the short sighted too-little-too-late outcome. The green budget by Alastair Campbell shows we can talk the talk and only that.