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posted by martyb on Friday May 10 2019, @12:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the Mars/Moon-Ho!-Can-you-dig-it? dept.

Phys.org:

"We are coming to a point in our history in which we need to start looking for more space," Han Admiraal, a civil engineer with over two decades of experience in underground space, told AFP on the sidelines of this year's World Tunnel Congress.
...
"Underground spaces could easily be used for growing crops," he said, as he toured the cavernous Bourbon Tunnel, dug deep under the Italian city of Naples as a potential escape route for King Ferdinand II of Bourbon after the 1848 riots.

Scientific developments in areas like aquaponics—where vegetables and fish are farmed together—could help relieve the pressure on the food supply chain, and dramatically cut transport costs if such new farms were situated under cities.

Isn't excavation expensive?


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  • (Score: 1) by optotronic on Friday May 10 2019, @02:14AM (7 children)

    by optotronic (4285) on Friday May 10 2019, @02:14AM (#841662)

    it is probably wrong to say that the Earth can't support many more billions of people

    For some definition of "support". Maybe if you're willing to live with a dwindling number of non-human species and accept the health consequences of consuming microplastics. And if you're willing to live through possibly nasty food and water shortages as the climate shifts.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Friday May 10 2019, @02:29AM

    by JNCF (4317) on Friday May 10 2019, @02:29AM (#841672) Journal

    Dwindling number of species, yes. Nasty food/water/air, probably not. If we're still living in meat-bodies we'll just filter it all and live inside. That's kind of dystopian from our current point of view, but I think it's where we're headed, and when the future people look back at videos of The Old Nature they'll consider it ugly by comparison to their new surrounding which have been generated by genetic algorithms using human standards of beauty measured from EEG headsets as their fitness functions. Yes, I know I could well be wrong in this prediction.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @03:00AM (5 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 10 2019, @03:00AM (#841683) Journal

    dwindling number of non-human species

    That's why I would prefer to see cities become extremely dense, to include towering arcologies or maybe TFA's underground structures that could allow 50 million people to fit into where 10 million people used to be, with stuff optimized for walking distance so that cars aren't needed, and possibly vertical farming, aquaponics, etc. within the city. Basically, you can make things more efficient and curb the outward spread.

    If that doesn't happen, you'll just naturally see people bulldozing forests to build more homes, living in formerly sparsely populated areas, widening cities and suburbs, etc. You'll naturally see it, because I don't hear any great ideas that are going to stop unwanted population growth, although birth rates are naturally declining all over the world. But even if population levels off at 10-12 billion, we will see U.S. population hit 400 million, and maybe 500-600 million. Meaning a lot of environmental destruction to support that inevitable growth.

    consequences of consuming microplastics

    I'm not sure why I would be worried about this when people are voluntarily consuming microplastics by choosing to use stuff like sea salt. I did submit the infinitely recyclable plastic story [soylentnews.org] earlier.

    And if you're willing to live through possibly nasty food and water shortages as the climate shifts.

    Do we have a choice in the matter? Unlikely at this rate. But we could see places like Canada and Russia, which have large amounts of cold, unpopulated land, becoming agricultural powerhouses.

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    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by qzm on Friday May 10 2019, @04:25AM (4 children)

      by qzm (3260) on Friday May 10 2019, @04:25AM (#841708)

      That would be because you are a moron sucking the teat of socialists populism.

      Perhaps have a look at how high density housing works out.
      Have a look at the psychological research on it.

      It is a complete disaster.
      The fact is there is huge free space.. most of the crowding is caused by artificial scarcity of where we are allowed to build.

      City dwellers on the whole are the cause of pollution and environmental problems.. Not the solution.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @05:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 10 2019, @05:07AM (#841719)

        Most of the crowding is caused because populations keep growing, and people like to go where the action is, not out to the boonies.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 10 2019, @05:25AM (2 children)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday May 10 2019, @05:25AM (#841728) Journal

        Here, get yourself a cheap education:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization [wikipedia.org]
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth#Population_projections_of_the_101_largest_cities_in_the_21st_century [wikipedia.org]

        People are already congregating into metropolitan areas en masse and will continue to do so. City planning will influence the quality of the outcome.

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        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday May 10 2019, @08:41AM (1 child)

          by Bot (3902) on Friday May 10 2019, @08:41AM (#841762) Journal

          I dunno elsewhere but here many people would gladly return to a piece of land as they are tired of getting their brain and respiratory system fogged with the city air. But it's unfeasible economically because you need to turn product into money to pay taxes.

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          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 10 2019, @11:17AM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday May 10 2019, @11:17AM (#841785) Journal

            J053 is not wrong. There are vast, vast swathes of the Earth that are empty. They could carry many more people, and probably will before most of us have passed from this life, actually.

            The trouble is supplying the material needs of those unborn billions. Capitalism, as currently constituted, can't do it. The "pillage the earth, exploit huge masses of poor to do the work, give it all to a lazy entitled handful" is unsustainable. A model that watched the triple bottom line of profit-social-environmental might have a chance.

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