Do we have any hopes at sustaining ourselves? As I'm about to start reading "Your World is About to Get a Whole lot Smaller" by Jeff Rubin it reminded me of some other stuff of read about our sustainability of resources vs. the economy. And since I haven't been doing much overly exciting to report back (with the exception of a great weekend ripping Silverstar resort.) I figured I'd share some quotes.
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ow that we've became accustomed to living a certain standard of life that has tasked our resources how can we sustain these standards? Even if we wake up as a global society and start addressing our abuse of the environment we simply cannot sustain ourselves in this current environment. I'll outline David Pimentel suggestion of a North American economy based on the sustainable use of energy, land, water and biodiversity while achieving a relatively high standard of living, but steps on a heroic scale must be taken immediately with a view of reducing both use of fossil fuels and population. He estimates that 90 million hectares of land (equal to the combined areas of the states of Texas and Idaho) could be used to collect solar energy without disrupting agricultural and forest productivity. By conserving energy, per capita consumption of oil could be cut in half to 5000 liters of oil equivalents. By conserving soil and water, reducing air pollution and massively recycling, a conserver society could be achieved in the United States in which the optimum population would be targetted at about 200 million ... Then it would be possible for Americans to continue to enjoy their relatively high standard of living... Worldwide, resolving the population -resource equation will be more difficult than in the united states.
The global population level could reach 10 billion before the middle of this century. Pimentel's projections all suggest the need for a massive effort to conserve soil and to recover enough food for each person on .5 hectare of land. These measures will have to be accompanied by rapid stabilization and then reduction in population. If these goals are achieved, it would be possible to sustain a global population of approximately 3 billion humans. With self-sustaining renewable energy system... providing each person with 5,000 liters of oil quivalents per year (one half of America's current consumption/yr but an increase for most people in the world), a population of 1 to 2 billion could be supported living in relative prosperity.
Hhm
so where does this leave our chances? What do we need to do? What will the outcome be 50 years from now? Previously throughout human history when a colony or tribe overused it's local resources they perished, mother nature would take over ,and another civilization would use the land afterwards. Today we are no longer isolated, the entire world is used to support us. There are many theories of what will happen and what needs to be done but the true consequences of our actions are yet to be seen.
N
ow that we've became accustomed to living a certain standard of life that has tasked our resources how can we sustain these standards? Even if we wake up as a global society and start addressing our abuse of the environment we simply cannot sustain ourselves in this current environment. I'll outline David Pimentel suggestion of a North American economy based on the sustainable use of energy, land, water and biodiversity while achieving a relatively high standard of living, but steps on a heroic scale must be taken immediately with a view of reducing both use of fossil fuels and population. He estimates that 90 million hectares of land (equal to the combined areas of the states of Texas and Idaho) could be used to collect solar energy without disrupting agricultural and forest productivity. By conserving energy, per capita consumption of oil could be cut in half to 5000 liters of oil equivalents. By conserving soil and water, reducing air pollution and massively recycling, a conserver society could be achieved in the United States in which the optimum population would be targetted at about 200 million ... Then it would be possible for Americans to continue to enjoy their relatively high standard of living... Worldwide, resolving the population -resource equation will be more difficult than in the united states.The global population level could reach 10 billion before the middle of this century. Pimentel's projections all suggest the need for a massive effort to conserve soil and to recover enough food for each person on .5 hectare of land. These measures will have to be accompanied by rapid stabilization and then reduction in population. If these goals are achieved, it would be possible to sustain a global population of approximately 3 billion humans. With self-sustaining renewable energy system... providing each person with 5,000 liters of oil quivalents per year (one half of America's current consumption/yr but an increase for most people in the world), a population of 1 to 2 billion could be supported living in relative prosperity.
Hhm
so where does this leave our chances? What do we need to do? What will the outcome be 50 years from now? Previously throughout human history when a colony or tribe overused it's local resources they perished, mother nature would take over ,and another civilization would use the land afterwards. Today we are no longer isolated, the entire world is used to support us. There are many theories of what will happen and what needs to be done but the true consequences of our actions are yet to be seen.
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