Thread: Sand! Is civilization slipping through "It's fingers"?

There are lots of things we need to address but no one ever cares or thinks they can do anything about it so everyone just thinks ah lets let the next generation deal with it.

My outlook on climate control an the ozone is if I shoot you with a gun you have a hole in you so the rockets shooting into space are what is putting huge holes in the ozone not the little things going on down here.

I also completely agree that it has to do with too many people. I don't know how many arguments I've gotten into because I think that bad things happening to large groups of people is population control. For example I said that 911 an Katrina were both population control it doesn't mean I don't feel bad about it or that it's not tragic I just understand that the we need major thing like this to happen to keep over population under control. They're all bad things but they are a necessity just like animals eating animals in the jungle.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

So you're saying there are only so many coticules and J-nats ?

Yes, Jimmy, and that is why my old coticule photo you like so much is way out of date!

Originally Posted by Utopian

Yes, Jimmy, and that is why my old coticule photo you like so much is way out of date!

For those who weren't around back then ........

I think it is funny that you can produce that photo much faster than I can. The pile would be a lot bigger now, to a point that I would not want to risk piling them. It helps a little that about a dozen are out on loan!

I just can't let go of a coticule!

Originally Posted by Utopian

This curve always happens when you have exponential growth with finite resources; and no matter your leanings politically or scientifically, the resources on this planet ARE finite.

The question though is what is the timescale. The resources are finite but there is also 'the circle of life'.
The primary non-renewable resource on this planet is energy and the sun won't burn out for another 5 billion years which is about how long since this planet was formed. On that time scale life as we know it is just a spec and Elon Musk is spending all his money to spread it out of the Earth.

It seems to me that people care about themselves, to a lesser degree about their children, less about grandchildren and almost not at all three generations beyond. So, things that happen on their life's timescale they see as very important (problems with bees), things that happen on timescale that'd affect their children and grandchildren they see as may be important (climate change) and anything else is pretty much unimportant.

Baring a catastrophic event people will adapt to however the environment changes.

Population growth doesn't seem to be an issue - most countries have lower and much lower population density than the Netherlands and the Netherlands can probably support even double its population right now.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I think it is funny that you can produce that photo much faster than I can. The pile would be a lot bigger now, to a point that I would not want to risk piling them. It helps a little that about a dozen are out on loan!

I just can't let go of a coticule!

Randydance would have stacked his coticules but he would to have had to erect scaffolding and hire a crane with 100 foot of stick ...........

Hmmm. I find it intriguing that the Netherlands can support that much life. It is a very small area, but unlike countries like Canada, the majority of it is habitable. Due to it's small area that would have to be some pretty well managed food and water production and waste management. Energy I do not see as part of our limitations, clean water on the other hand, unmodified foods resources, those things I see as quite limited. I do believe that the earth shakings herself in a great cleanse, is becoming more and more likely, in part due to the lack of little shakes. We have made vast areas of the earth uninhabitable over the centuries. We have adapted our environment more than we have adapted, and in doing so created part of the "hole" we find ourselves looking out of. Alternating wild fires and floods, within the same region and environmental anomalies and bizarre weather conditions are actually becoming rather common. I hate to sound like a dooms-day-ist but there is mounting evidence.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Energy I do not see as part of our limitations, clean water on the other hand, unmodified foods resources, those things I see as quite limited.

The only difference between dirty and clean water is the energy that it takes to clean it - there is no technological barrier.
USA and Canada waste obscene amounts of food, which means that there are more than enough resources and bandwidth in the current way of production.

I am drinking Chablis tonight, which is only possible because when phylloxera threatened the extinction of chardonnay in that region people grafted it on labrusca rootstock from america and it was fine.

Originally Posted by gugi

The question though is what is the timescale. The resources are finite but there is also 'the circle of life'.
The primary non-renewable resource on this planet is energy and the sun won't burn out for another 5 billion years which is about how long since this planet was formed. On that time scale life as we know it is just a spec and Elon Musk is spending all his money to spread it out of the Earth.

It seems to me that people care about themselves, to a lesser degree about their children, less about grandchildren and almost not at all three generations beyond. So, things that happen on their life's timescale they see as very important (problems with bees), things that happen on timescale that'd affect their children and grandchildren they see as may be important (climate change) and anything else is pretty much unimportant.

Baring a catastrophic event people will adapt to however the environment changes.

Population growth doesn't seem to be an issue - most countries have lower and much lower population density than the Netherlands and the Netherlands can probably support even double its population right now.

Actually, because of solar energy, I consider energy to be one of the few renewable resources. Out of necessity, we will eventually figure out the more efficient ways for making use of that solar energy. Sadly though, it is a matter of how long it will take to accomplish that and whether or not we will stop using the old sequestered solar energy buried deep underground in the form of coal, oil, and gas--all of which are bound with massive amounts of CO2.

I consider water to be the primary non-renewable resource. Even if we do come up with more economical ways to de-salinate the oceans, its transport far from the coasts is still a massive issue.

Yes, we will adapt. Some how, some way, we probably will survive. It's just a matter of how hard we make it.

Like climate change, the population issue is a global problem. Even if particular areas are unaffected, the total population of the planet is growing exponentially and out of control.

We have put a lot of stuff into the water that does not treat out. There is a ton of chemicals, and a lot of those we consume as pharmaceuticals, that are pretty much there to stay. Over time those will only get worse. Our food resources are another example of us meddling. We farm livestock that is quite poorly suited to the terrain and have all but eliminated the animals that once roamed in abundance. Our crops are currently more chemistry experiments than anything else. Those keep getting to be more and more modified and more and more people are having difficulty consuming them. Perhaps that is how we will adapt, only those that are able to live on our chemistry experiments will survive. You are correct in that food is not the problem, distribution is the issue. I think that is true with some of the population as well.