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

Originally Posted by gugi

I am drinking Chablis tonight,

That explains a lot.

Originally Posted by Utopian

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.

See, it's just a matter of cost not one of irreversibility.

Originally Posted by Utopian

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.

But this is not true - there is a clear negative feedback loop and control. When a population exceeds the available resources it starts declining by any number of pathways. So far it's been increasing because there are more than enough resources, and even if a particular area lacks them others with abundance have been providing them.
Not only this, but we've had population growth and increase of the standard of living of the population, and still have a lot of leftovers. Is this because we're utilizing the energy stored over hundreds of millions of years in fossil fuels - it is possible, though I don't know one way or another. But this doesn't mean that with a better technology the immense amount of solar energy that is now wasted couldn't be utilized and provide support for even further growth.

The point is that this is a matter of numbers and how they work out, not of some fundamental restrictions from lack of renewable resources. All life is synthesis of mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen and tiny bits of other stuff all is completely renewable.

Originally Posted by RezDog

There is a ton of chemicals, and a lot of those we consume as pharmaceuticals, that are pretty much there to stay.

They most certainly do not have to. The only reason they are left to stay is cost - if people want to they can take them out completely.

Originally Posted by RezDog

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.

Again, it's different technology for food production at much lower cost. At some point the negatives that are externalized costs may catch up and the present technology can change, but there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with it. People live longer, healthier and more idle lives than under the older technologies, so it's not like there is something gone terribly wrong.

Indeed the present way of mass food production does require a whole other level of distribution not only of the food, but also the soil minerals. In the old circle of life the crops deplete nitrogen and phosphorus from the soil then the animals concentrate those and return them back as manure pretty much in the original location. Nowadays when you grow the corn in 'Iowa' and the cattle in 'Nebraska' you also move the N and Ph from the former to the later. So far the easy solution has been to just worry about replenishing them in 'Iowa' the cheapest way possible. Which is to extract more of them from the ancient stores in fossil fuels.

Well to be fair, technically we do have the ability to remove them, however there are currently around 85 chemicals that are in most municipal water, because the cost of removal is exceptionally high, it would make clean water cost as much as some precious metals.
The eco systems of the planet are a delicate balance. Most things in nature are connected, even if we don;t see the connection easily. For an example the elimination of the sea otter on most of the west coast can be seen in the growth rings in the old growth forest. So the disappearance of frogs, the plight of the bees, the loss of the sands, the garbage in the oceans, and the contaminants in the water, and the melting of the polar ice caps are all related. They are all signs that we have no clue what we are doing. We can discount the science, we can vent even deeper and more far reaching science to try to compensate for the last science experiment when we thought we were making food better by putting star fish DNA into wheat. In the end part of the problem is our meddling.

The Earth has been here for billions of years before any life existed here. The earth doesn't care what we do because the surface we live on is basically like the crumbs on your dinner table. It could all be obliterated tomorrow and the Earth will still go on like it did before.

Everything is ultimately recycled. Nothing is wasted. You know, all that great topsoil we have in the American Heartland wasn't derived here it was originally in Canada. The last ice Age moved it all south leaving the Canadian Shield a barren pothole filled landscape of small lakes. The Earth's surface is constantly undergoing change.

As far as we are concerned technology has always come in the nick of time to save us. Whether that will always happen I don't know. I suspect one of these days something will happen and our number will be up.

Originally Posted by RezDog

The eco systems of the planet are a delicate balance. Most things in nature are connected, even if we don;t see the connection easily.

Nature is pretty violent place and the 'dynamic equilibrium' is constantly changing. It's a matter of adaptability - every species is constantly evolving and sometimes they go extinct.
We have managed a pretty decent and stable life that no other species on the planet enjoys. Most of the time, though, we have externalized the costs - if it's something that doesn't have an immediate negative effect we don't care about it. With time we've started to look beyond 'immediate effect' and have figured out that if we want to keep our nice life we have to start worrying about the medium-term and long-term effects too. But that's only because we have the luxury of doing so.

For example, since water keeps being brought up, I read at one time that if americans give up eating meat one day a week they will save more water than flows in the Colorado river. And given the typical american diet they'll even improve their health in the process. But it generally isn't going to happen because most americans put the immediate pleasure from eating obscene amounts of meat before the medium and long term negative effects.

There is always a resistance to start covering costs that have previously been externalized, but sustainability requires that we do more and more of that. Otherwise the negatives accumulate and eventually we have to deal with a far bigger problem (or some other generation does, which is why most people don't really care).

As far as science goes, I am personally very much in favor of mixing all kinds of genes. I don't see anything inherently wrong with that, even 100% synthetic genome is perfectly fine with me. There will no doubt be bad things but there will be good things too. The life on earth didn't come to this place by being encapsulated and isolated in a some shielded pod - it happened through hundreds of millions of years of extremely violent trials and errors. Making crazy stuff in a lab doesn't seem really crazy to me. There is the risk of something going very wrong and wiping us out but we already have plenty of such things like nuclear weapons and living 'as part of nature' without science is quite risky as well.

I still buy organic and local groceries (they tend to taste better and be more nutritious), but I also buy stuff that doesn't grow here or isn't growing here at the time I buy it. I don't need to buy yellow rice since I eat carrots, but if I lived in a place and had income that I couldn't get the necessary vitamin A, I'd be foolish to reject it on the basis of being genetically modified.

Well evolution takes time and is a natural adaptation, it does not mix DNA of plants and animals that does not live in the same area. The labs are increases crop yields, but not in order to feed more people or to increase the food value of our food. It's all about more $ per acre. They don't care about what the long term effects of those plants and those chemicals are on our planet. They are simply making money, and we the inhabitants and the earth will pay in the end. In developed countries obesity is rising at very rapid rates. Mostly amongst the city dwellers. Not just because of how much we eat but the crap that is pumped into it. In order to get mote meat to market, faster and at lower prices, we developed feed lots. That is where they take thousands of cattle, stand them side by side and stuff them full of steroids and antibiotics and anti psychotics, and a few other drugs to the point where a % of them die because of too many drugs. It is not about how many more people they can feed, it's about making more money. Yes we can save water by not eating beef one day a week, we can also save water by changing our clothes less often and not washing our cars twice a week. There is a lot going wrong and normally I would say you can do what you want and I will live the way I want, except, your science experiments are killing my bees, and my frogs, and keep washing up on my beaches. AS you contaminate your environment you are also contaminating mine. We have to agree to change things or regardless of my choices yours will kill us all. Evolution does not take place in a petri dish. We live longer but many with such a diminished quality that what is the point.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Well evolution takes time and is a natural adaptation, it does not mix DNA of plants and animals that does not live in the same area.

Well, it creates random mutations, which survive based their advantage/disadvantage for the species. I still don't see why this extremely slow and low-tech process ought to be exclusive. As far as I can tell there is nothing in the evolutionary process prevent wheat to evolve the starfish gene given sufficient time, since that was the example.

Originally Posted by RezDog

AS you contaminate your environment you are also contaminating mine. We have to agree to change things or regardless of my choices yours will kill us all.

Well, people are selfish, and it's not easy to make them agree to cover costs that they didn't have to cover. When environmental contamination costs something to the contaminators they will start doing less of it. Just like if water is priced correctly people will stop wasting it. Or if there are health costs that come from modern food production when those costs are priced back in the food production it will quickly change by the market forces.
As I keep saying the issue is the externalization of costs - if you fix that the market is just as efficient and ruthless as the evolutionary process and will take care of the rest. The only special thing that we need to deal with is setting a minimal level of resources that a person gets just because they are human - without that the disparities that the natural selection creates are going to cause some very unpalatable situations; I don't think we are willing to allow the appropriate level of empathy and ethics be subject of market optimization.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The Earth has been here for billions of years before any life existed here. The earth doesn't care what we do because the surface we live on is basically like the crumbs on your dinner table. It could all be obliterated tomorrow and the Earth will still go on like it did before.

Everything is ultimately recycled. Nothing is wasted. You know, all that great topsoil we have in the American Heartland wasn't derived here it was originally in Canada. The last ice Age moved it all south leaving the Canadian Shield a barren pothole filled landscape of small lakes. The Earth's surface is constantly undergoing change.

As far as we are concerned technology has always come in the nick of time to save us. Whether that will always happen I don't know. I suspect one of these days something will happen and our number will be up.

Exactly! And this is why I said, all I care for is my family, that's the only thing in my life that I can cherish, everything else, I have zero control over.

The question is, when the time is up, can you say you lived a good life, full of happiness? I know I can and that's all that matters to me.

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