Oct 12, 2008 01:22 pm
Re: The Manhattan Project of 2009
"It Asnwers everything about the energy crisis."
I am curious Sherry, does it "Ansnwer" the increased demands for energy by a world wide human population increase of 4.5 billion people in less than 100 years? Or the prediction that there will be an additional increase of 4 billion people demanding energy over the next 20 years?
Nature is a closed system. No amount of matter is ever lost and none is every gained, but like energy, it changes state. Dry grass and leaves and dead wood lying on the forrest floor slowly rots and becomes soil but, if it is set fire, then time becomes a factor. A balance in nature has been upset for that eco system. Wild life is lost, soil erodes, streams fill with sediments and on and on, a whole chain of events for a hundred years or more before it returns to a balanced state.
If there is 12.5 billion people weighing in at an average of 125 pounds each, then there will be 1,562,500,000,000 pounds of matter taken up by the existence alone of humans on Earth. Every heard the expression "dust to dust, ashes to ashes, we commend thy body back into the Earth from which it has come"?
Then there is what we consume as food, what we expel, the natural resources consumed to produce energy in order to have a life of,,, I'll just go ahead and say it, luxury.
I cant even imagine how many tons that would equal up to. Even though it will all be returned to the Earth eventually, there will be an upset or an out of balance where it could all come crashing down to one side and it will take thousands of years to recover, if it does recover.
After all, humans not only lived on Earth for thousands of years without all of the modern conveniences we take for granted today, the human race flourished without them. We today are testimony to that fact but, at the same time, we are a testimony to the a possible future where mankind will annihilate itself if things do not change where procreation is concerned. Or, by the looks of things, maybe I should say recreation.
In our time on Earth we are a living contradiction. We are at a pivotal point and no amount of RE is going to change that fact. Contraceptives? Maybe.
One thing is for sure if nothing is done about population growth of this rate, it will be a pity about Earth.