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Can We Feed Billions of Ourselves Without Wrecking the Planet?
We are now producing more food more efficiently than ever, and there is plenty to go around for a human population of 7 billion. But it is coming at a drastic cost in environmental degradation, and the bounty is not reaching many people.
Sustainable Food Production, a new Earth Institute primer from Columbia University Press, explores how modern agriculture can be made more environmentally benign, and economically just. With population going to maybe 10 billion within 30 years, the time to start is now, the authors say.
The lead author is ecologist Shahid Naeem, director of the Earth Institute for Environmental Sustainability. He coauthored the book with former Columbia colleagues Suzanne Lipton and Tiff van Huysen.
This is an interesting interview with the author. Do you agree (or disagree) with his conclusions?
[Also Covered By]: Phys.org
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 11 2022, @07:53PM (8 children)
Umm, not so fast there. One of the major effects of climate change has been fouling up the fresh-water cycle in major ways in a lot of places. Combine that with plants losing water faster due to the heat, and cheap water pushing farmers to less water-efficient products like almonds and beef and you have a real water problem.
Desalination might be able to counteract some of those problems, but desalination takes energy, and energy isn't free.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 11 2022, @07:59PM (4 children)
Yes it is. And we can make even more "free" energy. All the engineering problems have been solved. It's all politics now
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 11 2022, @08:12PM (2 children)
Oh really? How's that perpetual motion machine working for you?
If you're talking about windmills, solar collection, or nuclear power plants, all of those involve mining materials, refining, manufacturing, several steps of transportation, assembly and installation, and of course ongoing maintenance. Ergo, they aren't "free".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @08:18PM
I think thst is what the quotes were for, aside from Runaway1956 and some other anti-science bums you can safely assume everyone understands TANSTAAFL. Well, not on the universe scale anyway, but one day maybe we can park a solar array to convert energy to matter and get plenty of free-to-us stuff.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 11 2022, @08:29PM
Well gee, nothing is free but the time given us, meter's running... Consider motivation if nothing else. We are just supposed to do it in the least offensive way, nukes will cover a lot of territory in that department. You build out wind and solar for local needs. Mining can be done with tunnel boring machines, we can do it "arthroscopically", lay some rail in the empty tunnel for cargo transport, or pipe water from east to west through it.
I can assure you politics is the only obstacle
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11 2022, @08:15PM
Hey look, fusty made a useful comment! Not too far off his normal message, but we can see he is a "big picture" kind of guy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 12 2022, @04:47PM (2 children)
Show it, don't just feel it. My take is that virtually all of that can be explained in other ways such as observation/confirmation bias and poor water management.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 12 2022, @05:48PM (1 child)
No matter the specific cause of the problems, the belief that fresh water isn't a valuable and important resource to be managed somehow is very flawed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 12 2022, @06:06PM