Slashdot Mirror

It bothers me when people talk about our energy "needs", as though without some particular number of number of Watts, the world ends.

Are they better considered our energy "wants at a given price point"?

When I hear "need", but don't hear a "for what" part soon after, I get suspicious. Was the term "energy needs" a rhetorical device introduced by governments or energy suppliers to distract from the fact that we can live on varying amounts of energy consumption.

You can get an idea of yours here

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, it does not cool the planet. Inorganic materials have been shown to absorb carbon dioxide. If employed on a large scale it would reduce the levels of atmospheric carbon, thus cooling the planet. It would probably not be cost-effective and is almost certainly not the right way to go about things, but that certainly dispels the notion that plants are the only thing that can cool the planet.

Dark things absorb solar radiation and re-radiate it as heat. Solar panels absorb solar radiation and store the energy; a 100% efficient solar panel would indeed work to cool the planet, but even non-ideal solar panels will likely re-radiate comparatively little energy.

The link is current as of April 2008. Your reference to the World Food Programme does not actually support your argument; I will explain further in a moment.

As far as infrastructure and energy density, those are beyond the point. Nuclear power is finite. It's great now, but ultimately unsustainable. Solar power will be available for somewhat longer than life on Earth will be possible. There will be a point where renewable energy sources will be the only ones available to us; why hasten that day? Nuclear power should be used only where other energy sources are infeasible. As a minor note, the cost per watt for solar power has recently become lower than nuclear or coal.

On the job side of things, a quick search seems to indicate that renewable energy sources would employ more people. The most concise link I could find on the subject is unfortunately a blog, but there seems to be much more information here, if you care to wade through it.

Now, there are a few details that you have clearly not considered. First, simply pouring water on a desert does not make it ideal for growing crops. Most often all that does is create an erosion problem. Soil that is suitable for growing crops is quite different from desert sand, and is the result of a completely different ecosystem than what is found in desert. It is theoretically possible to change one into the other, however this takes both time and far more money than would ever be realized from such a venture. I would hate to see the manufacturing process for obtaining the organic materials and fertilizers required; we have more than enough problems with that sort of mess as is. Further, where would the water come from? If you're proposing to build huge expensive nuclear desalinization plants and colossal water pipelines, at huge (presumeably taxpayer) expense, and then use all of that on plants? Something tells me not many people would be supportive of this idea.

We come back to the most important flaw in what you propose. Aside from the other glaring issues (I have not even mentioned nuclear waste), the problem of hunger stems not from inadequate production, but inadequate distribution. North America clearly has no problems feeding its inhabitants, nor does Europe. Neither do we have excessive problems with obtaining sufficient drinking water. What sense does it make to increase the food supply in North America when not only are we not having a problem here, but as you say, the cost of shipping food is becoming more costly all the time? Why irrigate US deserts when Africa is starving?

As to your last point, lack of clean water does not mean lack of water. Water is a necessity for human life; where it is not present, neither are we. Filtering and sterilizing water is less expensive than desalinization by several orders of magnitude. The solution is not to unnecessarily "produce" more water, but to clean what water is already present.

I'm sure you've heard the term 'word salad' to describe nonsensical sentences. I'd like to coin the term 'fact salad' to describe your arguments. I realize this may rankle, but I would take it as a spur to more carefully research your positions before claiming someone else is wrong.

doing a little more research

There is an FAQ
http://www.rprogress.org/newprojects/ecolFoot/faq/ index.shtml#accuracy1

that FAQ points to and xls file.
http://redefiningprogress.org/programs/sustainabil ityindicators/ef/ef_household_0203.xls
that does a more complex calculation.

and there are some suggestions at
http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/lowband/english/ individuals.asp

On the other hand, if you also calculate my ecological footprint, if everyone lived like me, we'd need four planets to support us all. Good thing everyone doesn't live like me. It's good to be on top.

"The article mentions meat makers as home appliances..."

I don't see what the problem is. If the meat tastes like meat and has roughly the same protein and calorie content but costs much less then this can only be a good thing, right? Maybe we won't need to raise millions of cows just for meat production and we can change some of the food crop over to something more useful like grains.

And if the meat-o-matic runs on lawn and garden clippings, the result may have a healthier omega-3 / omega-6 fat ratio, like cattle fed on grass rather than grain used to have. Advantages: healthier meat, less yard waste, more decentralized food production, and slightly reduced ecological footprint.

Disadvantages: increased energy demand and a continued marginalization of nature. This later point, I think, is what creeps people out. When you can plug in an appliance that grows meat (and presumably some day also pure fruit and vegetable matter with no waste parts), your life is that much more removed from flowers, trees and the dazzling variety of species that make our world such a great place to live.

Actually, that's the main reason I quit microwaving chicken every night some years ago and have been a vegan ever since. Not for the ethics or health, but just to feel more connected to food and nature, in all its variety and splendor. Neat as the meat-o-matic is, I won't be rushing out to buy one.

The paper mills don't HAVE to use them, it's just that our society is so deeply steeped in resource consumption, that it deems self destructing paper to be of greater value than the more permanent variety because much of what gets printed is of no consequence whatsoever.

The problem is: it still consumes resources. The average american consumes between 4 and 5 planets worth of resources.

See what kind of a mess you're making here:

http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp#

Full disclosure: I rated a 4.1

:-/

The crappy media, the lousy substrates, it's all garbage, and that's where it will end up.

RS

Here are some worst-case scenarios for you:

The current rapid melting of glaciers in the Peruvian Andes is projected to increase sea level by 40 cm.

Greenland's ice is melting 20% faster than predicted. Total melting of its ice would result in a 6-7m sealevel rise.

Total sealevel rise from Antarctic ice melting: 60-70m.

Worst-case, this is 77.5m so far.

Most of the world's population lives in large urban centres located in low-lying coastal regions.

Want to know what happens with a 60m rise (i.e., Antarctica)? Say good-bye to: Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Paris, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, Venice, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Leningrad, Helsinki, Boston, New York, coastal New England, Washington, Jacksonville, the state of Florida, New Orleans, most of Cuba, Houston, Mephis, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Porltand, Seattle, and Vancouver. And this partial listing, of course, is completely Eurocentric and North American-biased. Most of the world lives neither in Europe nor North America.

I'm not sure if this includes thermal expansion. If so, the rise would be >60m from Antarctica's melting.

This isn't going to happen overnight. But at the current rates of anthropogenic climate change, it's on its way.

My sources are respected peer-reviewed reports and articles (e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Don't rely on what I'm saying to form your opinion - do your own research and see for yourself.

And then take a footprint and see how you can cut back your contribution to the problem. Anthropogenic climate change is everyone's fault (particularly First World nations) - hence everyone should be doing something about it.

Just because everybody is saying it, doesn't make it true.

But okay, I'm the last person to deny global warming is upon us. Other than some US folks still not convinced or thinking it's not that big a problem (or simply putting their head in the sand), global warming is observed, and the only question is about how much of it is the result of human activities, and how much by natural causes. Oh yeah, and what to do about it.

For the rest: nothing to see here.

Find your ecological footprint

and then...

compare it to the rest of the world's

A caluclation based on the amount of land used by each person based on their lifestyle, or their "ecological footprint" are available at redefining progress
To calculate your ecological footprint go here.