The real problem isn't the availability of food. It's the availability of water.
Corn, a C3 plant (meaning one of the most water efficient plants) still uses.15 inches of water, on average, a day. even during the rainier months, there aren't very many places that get 6 inches of rain a month. Most places in the bread basket of the US get about 3-4 during the rainy season.
In order to make up the difference, we irrigate. But the central US has a lot of problems in that respect as well. People have been drawing water from a limestone aquifer that runs the length of the great plains, but that has almost run out of water.
Even desalination is only a partial answer. Let me ask you, just how expensive do you think it will be to desalinate the amount of water needed for crops, and pipe it all the way to the fields that are far from the ocean?
The truth is, fresh water is already being overtaxed. We need to find new sources of water before our population reaches a critical point.
Slashdot Mirror
The real problem isn't the availability of food. It's the availability of water. Corn, a C3 plant (meaning one of the most water efficient plants) still uses .15 inches of water, on average, a day. even during the rainier months, there aren't very many places that get 6 inches of rain a month. Most places in the bread basket of the US get about 3-4 during the rainy season.
In order to make up the difference, we irrigate. But the central US has a lot of problems in that respect as well. People have been drawing water from a limestone aquifer that runs the length of the great plains, but that has almost run out of water.
Even desalination is only a partial answer. Let me ask you, just how expensive do you think it will be to desalinate the amount of water needed for crops, and pipe it all the way to the fields that are far from the ocean?
The truth is, fresh water is already being overtaxed. We need to find new sources of water before our population reaches a critical point.
So if a topic is controvercial, it will get studied? So when people protest stem cell research, they are in fact helping to fund it?