<DrumBeat: January 28, 2008The Oil Drum

546 comments on Powering Civilization to 2050

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ArianeB on January 28, 2008 - 10:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have been thinking about possible solutions as well and they generally match this article. Ideally we need a zero growth model for economy and population as well.

But human nature is such that we cannot get a "blueprint" (to quote the Shell memo) to be accepted until there is a consensus one is needed, and there will not be a consensus until things get really really bad first.

All we can do is put out potential plans and hope that at some point in the near future leaders will finally wake up and use one -- hopefully while it is still possible to implement.

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Fat Housewife on January 28, 2008 - 11:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Maybe we should genetically engineer differant humans. ;-)

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oldhippie on January 28, 2008 - 9:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Genetically engineer engineers instead of humans,

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DIYer on January 29, 2008 - 7:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Smaller humans. That's how electronics has gotten so efficient. If humans were only a half inch tall the planet could easily feed six billion of 'em...

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oldhippie on January 29, 2008 - 3:21pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The thread is not entirely facetious. Nutrition issues used to keep humans much smaller. Which aided survivability in famine time. Which was often every late winter/early spring. Large specimens tended to be leaders, but also had to somehow justify their much larger appropriation of foodstuffs.

Social cohesion and teamwork also aided survival on a smaller resource footprint. As a trivial example the 1920's 3-flat I'm sitting in was built in a season. Replicating all the detail in this structure today would be most likely a 3 year project - even though it would be power tools, not hand tools, deliveries by phone call, not by teams of horses, etc. We have lost even the idea of teamwork.
And I'm quite sure this bldg was produced with an order of magnitude less waste than construction sites generate now.

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