Whoops, maybe a link to the right wikipedia page is more pertinent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon) Reading stuff like that gets me excited about space travel!
It's interesting. We see all this "grow a garden," "buy local," "eat organic" rhetoric all the time. I'm living in the realm of Alice Waters out here (she is arguably the nexus of the slow food / buy local / cook seasonal movement) in the SF Bay Area, but I was talking with a guy in biotech VC who noted the following: If you want to feed the world's population using these green techniques and principles, you will need about 9 planet Earths. (LOL!)
The anti-GMO stuff from the (far) left drives me nuts. It's like: okay, you figure out how to feed the frickin' planet. Putting oats on a plane to Africa will just not do it, hippy. Memo: we've been genetically modifying organisms through selective breeding and crop selection for thousands of years. Apples used to be bitter little things the size of ping-pong balls.
Yes, but you and your "scientist" buddies won't be happy until the apples all weep oxidized, strawberry-flavored tears when you bite into them. I hear they're even working on adding gerbil voiceboxes onto new strains of Granny Smiths, just so they can get the crying sounds right. I prefer my fruit bruised, and brown, and disgusting-tasting. Oh, wait, no I don't.
Wha'? I keep hitting refresh, and nothin'. Are you trying to internet-clone me, for experiments 'n such? Can't be done, science! I am an individual! Me = a Non-Malthusian Population of 1!
We can feed the world with science, but we're only using this technology right now to further corporate greed. Capitalism fail.
Overpopulation makes world-capitalism the biggest problem because, under that system, the more of us there are the less each one of us is worth.
Come on! Why is my rectum bleeding? Again! You develop an interest in UFO abductions. You reach out to some thriving internet communities, filled with survivors and their harrowing tales. You accept one IM friend request. Next thing you know, you wake up, and... Why, I'm beginning to think that this wasn't even a UFO at all. Not cool, Science! Not! Cool! Yeah, Monsanto is kind of a dick, patenting seeds & such; we understand that. But, everyday, cheap, hardy stocks of corn & wheat prevent hundreds of millions from starving. You and I can afford to eat organic, perhaps, and avoid the repercussions from pesticides. But most of the world can barely afford to eat. Not a fail. A Capitalism trade-off.
I read once (not sure of the accuracy, and I don't really care, because even if it's off a little, the point is the same) that every man, woman, and child in the US could move to Alaska, be given an acre, and we could use the entire lower 49 for resources necessary for life. Not all of Alaska is inhabitable, but the point is that North America has much land that is very lightly used. Hell, beef is still cheap here. That's the most resource intensive major food source that exists. Grass-fed cows each require an average of 20 acres to support, and 3 years to grow to harvestable size. The same 20 acres could grow millions of chickens every 6 weeks. If ag regulations don't get in the way, as population increases, we'll eat more chicken and less beef. Our lives might change, but we won't disappear. I have faith that we can figure out solutions to all of the issues you mentioned, and others that are typically mentioned about over population.
Kids are annoying. You're always changing their diapers and running their lives and buying their meals and fixing their mistakes and tabulating their runs scored in their Tee Ball Leagues. Too much work. Monsanto is the great Satan. If the Raiders folded up operations and ceased to exist, no one would be more thrilled than I.
