I don't trust "green for profit" companies frankly - the two components are generally at odds with one another.
I would far rather see on site generation with on site storage arrays (battery banks etc.).
Thats just my view though
Mining The Wilderness
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I don't trust "green for profit" companies frankly - the two components are generally at odds with one another.
I would far rather see on site generation with on site storage arrays (battery banks etc.).
Thats just my view though
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I tend to agree with that (especially not trusting green for profit mobs).....but I, like most I suspect, still have a long way to go
Me too - but we are working on it. We heat with wood, harvest rainwater, harness groundwater, source most food locally growing a good proportion and have re-wired for off grid supply. I need to save up for the off grid generation infrastructure now. I would love to have gone entirely low voltage, but there are still some practical problems with certain appliances in doing that.
rancid badger
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
It's not exponential? As in: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/exponential
So this chart doesn't represent more and more rapid growth?
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I made a major cock-up a couple of years ago...our gas boiler failed and without thinking I left it to my mrs to sort out a new one....only after the new one had been installed at a cost of nearly £4k did it occur to me that I should have got a large woodgas boiler installed in the garage that could heat the house and give us hotwater as I get all the free wood I can eat from work! Still kick myself each and every time a gas bill arrives....luckily they aren't that bad as we heat with the wood burner and only use the gas for hot water (no...didn't even get a stove with a back boiler!!!).
We too collect as much rain water as possible and we are saving up to get solar for the roof.....as I said we're trying but we live in high suburbia and it's not an easy task....especially with a wife who likes the status quo! Lol
I often envy your set up Hugh, lots more options than we have here......and your other half seems fully on board, unlike mine!
We too collect as much rain water as possible and we are saving up to get solar for the roof.....as I said we're trying but we live in high suburbia and it's not an easy task....especially with a wife who likes the status quo! Lol
I often envy your set up Hugh, lots more options than we have here......and your other half seems fully on board, unlike mine!
Well, no because the gross population figure doesn't tell you about the rate of growth.
50 years ago women around the world had 3-7 children each. Now they have between 1 and 5, even in the poorest of countries. Each successive generation contributes less and less to the total population figure. In many developed nations, that rate of growth has fallen so low that it is a negative number. Many Western European countries are actually experiencing population decline (frequently masked by immigration).
The rapid population growth found in the 20th century is largely a product of modern medicine. Infant mortality in particular fell through the floor. This was a good thing. In cultures where you had lots of kids because
a) you wanted at least some to live to adulthood
and
b) you wanted a workforce for your hand tilled farm
these developments contributed to a population explosion. However, once a culture moves away from a manual agrarian society and a high infant mortality rate, there is no need to have 7 kids each. Hence why the fertility rate is dropping.
Exactly. The true population growth (currently) is fueled by increased longevity. That's what I meant earlier when I commented about the aging population; people are living longer and there are fewer births. And we still look for new treatments and vaccines to defeat diseases. That can only exacerbate the problem.
Despite the charts and predictions though, don't expect that trend to continue unabated. When the various nation reach a certain elderly population level, they'll either begin to encourage climbing birth rates again or they'll take more Draconian measures. Neither choice sounds good to me.
Thats the key alright - and being surrounded by people of a "like mind". I loaned my above ground pump to a new neighbour today. He has promised to deliver all the rotted manure that we want. Yesterday we collected 20 cubic metres of woodchip from another neighbour (makes a stunning much on fruit beds).
You'll get there Bam - its a journey rather than a destination.
Not completely true. Even now we need a working age (tax paying) and military service age population to both support the children, elderly/retired, and to serve to defend the nations.
Does it take fewer people to accomplish the labor now? Yes
Does it take fewer working age people paying taxes to be able to afford it now? No
I don't think human physiology would be conducive to women bearing enough taxpayers to balance the budgets of most Western nations......
The gross population figure tells you that population is climbing.
It is perfectly possible to work out that even the current population is only sustainable using fossil fuel driven mechanisation, and fossil fuel derived fertilisers. The food then has to be distributed using...you guessed it...fossil fuel.
What I know for an absolute certainty is that this country cannot feed itself, clothe itself, or heat its own homes. It achieves these things by importing food, clothes and fuel from countries that ought to be consuming those materials themselves, but instead live in poverty.
Whatever you think about the moral position of this (and bear in mind we do not even pay for these items with goods of equal value, or even with hard currency, but with debt that we cannot honour), as the population of those countries expands and they need all these items for themselves, how will this country survive when it can no longer exploit the impoverished or use exhausted fossil fuels?
Its not just that population may no longer grow, it needs to fall as we exhaust the finite resources that we have been propping ourselves up with - unless we will rely on some yet mythical "future scientific invention"
bambodoggy
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Cold fusion?
It'll heat the house. I don't fancy it in a sandwich much. At least it would be a toasted sandwich I guess.
There's nothing mythical about it. The reason a Malthusian catastrophe failed to materialise is because Malthus entirely failed to appreciate the human capacity for ingenuity. Advances in agriculture have not only kept pace with population growth, they have outstripped it. In Britain we are harvesting more crops than at any point in history, while using less land.
This is what makes humans so remarkable. Resources are not actually finite to us - we can make new one's by thinking up ways to exploit them. Take shale gas and oil for example - only a few years ago a whole new energy market being opened up was unthinkable.
Also bear in mind, regions are not closed systems. If one region (London, say) cannot grow enough food to support itself, it is capable of importing food from somewhere with surplus growing capacity. The real problems occur when humans step in and prevent people from being able to move goods and people between regions (for example during one of Africa's many wars and the accompanying famine)
Privately the politicians realise that there are now over 80 million people in the UK.
Thats what the big supermarket chains have been telling them for years, based on consumption figures but its one of those stories they would rather squash.
There's only, what? 5 Million in Scotland?
Independent article HERE from 2007.
Somewhere like New Zealand, roughly the same size as Scotland England and Wales, only has a population of just over 4 million.
If I ever get my finances sorted, i'd be off like a shot.
Thats what the big supermarket chains have been telling them for years, based on consumption figures but its one of those stories they would rather squash.
There's only, what? 5 Million in Scotland?
Independent article HERE from 2007.
Somewhere like New Zealand, roughly the same size as Scotland England and Wales, only has a population of just over 4 million.
If I ever get my finances sorted, i'd be off like a shot.
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Tell that to those dying of thirst because of "water wars". Or those who starve to death each year. Or the environment heating up because of us burning those lovely fossil fuels. We are expanding like bacteria on a petri dish burning up the very resources that sustain us. The only question, to my mind, is what runs out first.
To bet our future on inventions that have not yet been made is surely the height of folly. We could quite easily live "within our planetary means", we simply choose not to.
Living beyond your means always comes home to roost in the end.
British Red, define "Planetary Means" for me please? At a paleolithic level of technology, the earth had a holding capacity in the low millions. That was as many as it could support.
As technology has advanced, the holding capacity of the earth has increased, and will continue to do so.
Food and water are not scarce. We currently produce enough food for around 10 billion people. The reason people die of hunger and thirst has nothing to do with shortage. It is usually the result of either a natural disaster, or an act by humans to actively prevent the people in question from being able to access the neccesary.
As technology has advanced, the holding capacity of the earth has increased, and will continue to do so.
Food and water are not scarce. We currently produce enough food for around 10 billion people. The reason people die of hunger and thirst has nothing to do with shortage. It is usually the result of either a natural disaster, or an act by humans to actively prevent the people in question from being able to access the neccesary.
"Planetary Means" means without denuding the planet of finite resources.
I believe you are wrong Wook - I hope you are right but I do not believe that you are.
I can give all the reasons but since you believe that some, as yet unmade, discovery will save us, I'm sure I cannot convince you.
I believe you are wrong Wook - I hope you are right but I do not believe that you are.
I can give all the reasons but since you believe that some, as yet unmade, discovery will save us, I'm sure I cannot convince you.
Red, all resources are to some extent finite. To try and avoid using up anything at all is to cease trying to stay alive.
Where would we be if stone age man had concerned himself with not depleting precious flint stocks?
The history of humanity has been one of utilization of the environment, followed by refinement and ultimately adaptation onto to the next big thing, either when that resource was depleted or when something better came along. It has always been the case.
The only way for man to have no impact on the environment is for him to go extinct. At which point, something else will come along and start using up "finite" resources with gay abandon.