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G0TEZ > FUEL 13.12.11 22:39l 45 Lines 1793 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : F70130G0TEZ
Read: GUEST DK3UZ
Subj: Re: PS End of Growth
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0MRW<DK0WUE<IK6ZDE<VE3UIL<I0OJJ<GB7CIP
Sent: 111213/2031Z @:GB7CIP.#32.GBR.EU #:19711 [Caterham Surrey GBR] $:F70130G0
From: G0TEZ@GB7CIP.#32.GBR.EU
To : FUEL@WW
Hmm...yes.
I see your point about Malthus v food production but it has the smell of a
typical exponential function to me and we seem to have passed the knee of
the curve. The characteristics of an exponential growth in real life
include an almost vertical rise in the curve followed by a sudden stop as
a process reaches saturation.
Examples include, say, the sales of pocket calculators, sales rose, prices
dropped,falling prices caused sales to increase causing more sales then,
suddenly, everyone had one which caused an abrupt stop and a levelling out
as calculators were incorporated into other devices, typically mobile
phones.
Population icreases causing an increase in agriculture leading to a fall
in mortality and a further rise in agriculture but, given that a country
like Australia could build solar powered desalination plants making it
possible to irrigate the dry centre and increase the food supply we would
still reach a point when we would run out of land. Hydroponics would then
become a possible solution but not in the long term.
The scwenarios after that include emigration to another planet and, more
likely, a massive world war, the latter being most likely.
I am not given to an unquestioning belief in doom and gloom like the
proponents of global warming but my thoughts strangly keep returning to
Brave New World where people lived in man sized cupboards (which, I
believe already happens in Tokio.) and contraception is mandatory.
The title of that book, like many, came from Shakespeare:
"Oh Brave New World which hath such people in it." Maybe but, like
Shakespeare, I will be dead so I don't care.
73 - Ian, G0TEZ @ GB7CIP
Message timed: 20:30 on 2011-Dec-13 GMT
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