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Humans Will Need Two Earths By 2030
An anonymous reader writes "A recent report warns that humans are overusing the resources of the planet and will need two Earths by the year 2030. The Living Planet Report tells that the demands on natural resources have doubled in the past 50 years and are now outstripping what the Earth can provide by more than half."
What is the purpose of this post? What does it even mean? What is the purpose of posting a link to a nebulous summary of a highly suggestive report on an extremely politically charged subject on a site that bills itself "News for Nerds"?
I rather doubt we will have a "day after tomorrow", things don't happen like that. Instead I see a mechanization of our nature. For example, imagine a sort of nature where things are completely recycled? Sound far fetched? Consider how Switzerland is essentially self-sufficient in copper. Does Switzerland have copper mines? Nope not even close. Copper can be easily recycled and hence Switzerland recycles their own copper. This goes towards rare earths, etc, etc.
While many people believe that we waste, waste, waste, there are many pockets of the world that are now becoming adapt at living with little. Classic example is Israel. Israel can grow crops with water amounts that makes everybody else blush with embarrassment. That is the future...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
This has F-U-D written all over it. Yes, we might need 2.75 Earths worth of *some* minerals or resources, such as tungsten or cork trees, in 20 years, but we certainly do not need 2.75 Earths worth of other, vaster resources, such as breathable air or silicon. To say that we'd need two Earths in order to quench our ravenous thirst for light bulb filaments is overkill, and certainly does more to make me discount these studies than think poorly of how humanity manages the resources we have.
Precisely. These kind of projections invariably fail to take into account even the most basic ideas about supply and demand. As we begin to run lower on a given resource it becomes increasingly more viable to recycle it or look for alternatives. In most cases this happens without even especially inconveniencing people - everyone might grumble about fuel prices, but then they just drive a little less, the market for more efficient cars grows, and not that much changes in our day to day lives.
You are painting with an excessively broad brush here.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want pesticides all over your fruits and vegetables.
You don't need mystical mumbo jumbo to not want your chicken and cows raised in factory farming conditions, fed hormones, antibiotics, and the cheapest foodstuff imaginable to fatten them up as quickly as possible.
Why do you need mystical mumbo jumbo to be aware of the major nutritional differences between wild-caught fish and farmed fish, that are principally due to their different feeding habits.
So yeah, some of the stuff labeled "organic" that's basically identical to conventional stuff may be a rip-off, but there is plenty for a purely scientific, rational-minded person to critique in our industrial food system and plenty of reasons to avoid certain food produced by them.
The overpopulation myth. Bottom line - we could provide for every single person living on this planet with just the resources inside the US. Never mind the rest of the world. We're a LONG way from overpopulation... We have a distribution - not resource - problem to solve.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Packing everyone into 8x10 cells, isn't an acceptable solution to me. Any solution that doesn't allow for wide open space of undeveloped land, wilderness, forests, jungles, deserts, is suboptimal. We could cram everyone into skyscrapers that cover the entire earth in one giant planet wide city, but what kind of life would that be? Quality of life and quality of our living space are important things to consider. Humans were not meant to be packed like sardines into crowded cities with no where to escape to. The health effects both known and unknown would be profound.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
What Carter was discussing was resources in the USA, at projected increased rates of consumption. Since we passed peak oil in the continental USA in the 70s, this was not inaccurate. I don't think it ever occurred to him that we were collectively such self-absorbed greedy obtuse little wussies that we would let ourselves become dependent on the Arabs, Russians and Mexicans for the life blood of our economic viability and strategic safety (i.e. Oil).
Surprise!
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Uh oh, another "non-profit" group must need money to supplement their jet's and expensive dinners.
That is a stupid argument. Imagine you see someone disemabarking from a private jet, wearing a suit that costs more than the salaries of you and I combined, just so that they can attend an expensive dinner in another city. Which is more likely?
Which side of this argument has the most financial interest in arguing either for or against limiting our use of Earth's resources? Let's face it, you don't get super rich by becoming a climate scientist.
It reminds me of when the three CEOs of the car industry all took private planes to lobby Washington for a taxpayer handout. But no, I am sure that you are right that it is the tree-huggers who are the ones trying to greedily screw us all for money.
You are probably referring to Hubbert's Peak. His prediction was for peak production in the US, and was mostly on target (which is admirable for a prediction 50 year ahead). The curve has been adapted to several regions, with correct predictions. The peak global production, using Hubbert's curve, is predicted for 2005, and it seems to have indeed ocurred.
Mind you, peak production isn't the same as "running out". There's still a lot of oil out there. It's just that now it's clear we must find an alternative, and we have a couple of decades left.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
The US did not reach "peak nuclear" because there's no technical reason preventing increased nuclear output from the US. There's a lot of "cut off one's face" greens who've succeeded in bringing about even more coal burning, but that's not here or there. Nor did we encounter Peak Buggy Whip, the demand simply fell away. We could begin ramping nuclear up any time we wanted, but we'll never produce as much oil as we used to (let alone enough to meet our increased consumption since then) however we try.
And that is what Peak X specifically refers to: An inexorable decline in production & major increase in prices that results as initial easily accessible supplies are depleted.