From: glennmorton@entouch.net
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 15:39:02 EST
David wrote:
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 11:59:17 -0700
>Glenn,
>You rascal, you destroy dreams of sufficiency with a little data and some
>math. And you did not even include the area needed to grow /Euphorbia
>spp./ to supply the missing petroleum. Further, you overlooked the
>no-energy conversion of sea water to irrigate the Sahara and other
>deserts. Surely a few miracles will solve all the problems. ;-)
>
Sorry to be so disappointing! :-)
You wrote:
>Agriculture in the States requires more energy input than the energy
>value of the output--whether as food or as fuel. (I think that Brazil may
>be doing a little better using alcohol to reduce petroleum imports.) It
>is energy input that changed farming from a little better than
>subsistence (small amounts in excess for sale) to less than 10% farmers
>providing for all. Without lots of inexpensive fuel this cannot continue.
>However, population around the world keeps increasing, despite the AIDS
>epidemic in Africa and wars in various places. Available water and
>agricultural land are not increasing much, if any. Do you suppose that
>the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse represent the natural result of what
>we observe happening? (This may not fit interpretations of Revelation
>other than the dispensationalist, but on any interpretation catastrophe
>seems impending.)
>Dave
>
The big problem is the population. The world simply can't continue to support more and more of us, but I doubt that sex and babies are going to go out of style anytime soon. Ultimately, regardless of what we do, we will be like the Reindeer below. Don't know when, because technology can put off the day of reckoning but it will happen:
“An example featuring mammals is provided by the reindeer of St. Matthew Island, in the Bering Sea (Klein, 1968). This island had a mat of lichens more than four inches deep, but no reindeer until 1944, when a herd of 29 was introduced. By 1957 the population had increased to 1,350; and by 1963 it was 6,000. But the lichens were gone, and the next winter the herd died off. Come spring, only 41 females and one apparently dysfunctional male were left alive (Figure 2).” David Price, “Energy and Human Evolution,” Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Volume 16, Number 4, March 1995, pp. 301-19, page unknown.
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