From: Chad Perrin Date: 2009-04-11T10:04:25+09:00 Subject: Re: Goodbye Ruby - Hello Earth --yEPQxsgoJgBvi8ip Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 08:05:10PM +0900, Jeff Schwab wrote: > Christophe Mckeon wrote: > > > >Agriculture is entirely dependent on petrochemicals. >=20 > For some definition of "entirely" that means something completely=20 > different from "entirely." See The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael=20 > Pollan, for a quick tour of the American food supply system. Indeed. People talk about how without petrochemicals we'd have significant food shortages -- but the truth is that the real danger we face in terms of agricultural production is government. The only reason the loss of petrochemicals in agriculture would lead to worldwide famines, using the numbers on which people base this argument, is because they're only measuring the food we don't waste the moment we harvest it. The government: 1. creates least-efficient alternative fuel programs that actually use up food crops when more efficient alternatives using inedible crops that grow on land not as useful for food crops 2. actually *pays* corporate farms to burn, or otherwise destroy, mind-boggling amounts of harvested food crops every year 3. uses regulatory powers to prevent more efficient, safer food production by smaller agricultural concerns because such food production might actually compete with huge, subsidized corporate farms that have their own lobbyists 4. and so on The problem wouldn't be the loss of petrochemicals as part of agricultural "state of the art", really, but the way government sticks its nose into the business of making food. Even if all the petrochemicals *did* suddenly dry up, and we were reduced to using manure for fertilizer, and oxen to pull plows, we could absorb the drop in productivity easily if government would just stop investing so much time, effort, and money in making food production less efficient. >=20 > >Population overshoot. There are currently 6 billion people on the planet= =20 > >and growing exponentially. You guys should all be able to guess what=20 > >happens when you have a finite resource base but an exponential growth= =20 > >rate of both economies and populations. The carrying capacity of the=20 > >earth w/o constant petrolium input is estimated at between 1 and 3=20 > >billion depending on who you ask. >=20 > It doesn't work that way. We have extraordinarily abundant sources of=20 > energy available; the economic incentives just haven't been sufficient=20 > to tap them yet. As demand for energy goes up, and the oil supply goes= =20 > down, we'll turn to alternative sources. (Actually, I suspect this has= =20 > already started.) One might make the argument that agitation by environmentalists has caused government to step in and *make* it happen. After all, government interfering with the efficiency and affordability of petroleum production, distribution, and purchase at the consumer end has helped to spur research, as has funding from government programs. So people might argue. Of course, government basically put us in this position in the first place, by regulating industries so that they are able (even encouraged) to become dominated by huge, unimaginably powerful corporate entities that toy with the market and resist change from below. At best, we get the equivalent of what we'd have if individual economic sovereignty were repsected in the first place, but at great cost, and that's ignoring the fact that a lot of government supported programs are political choices rather than efficient and effective choices, leaving us with less advancement in the energy production state of the art than we really should be experiencing by now. >=20 > >But... I found permaculture which was designed by scientists >=20 > So were the A-bomb, GMO foods, and most of those petrochemicals you've=20 > already condemned. Not to mention digital watches (shiver). you +=3D 1 # for the Adams reference >=20 > >When I saw that there was hope, I had a sort of spiritual awakening, >=20 > Oh jeez, here we go... >=20 > >a crumbling of the walls of denial, and a grieving for the planet we are= =20 > >about to destroy, that's why I'm leaving, >=20 > Leaving what? "The planet we are about to destroy?" If we're=20 > destroying the planet, there's nowhere safe to go but space. (That's=20 > not really safe either, lacking oxygen, warmth, and broadband internet=20 > access.) No . . . I think that's why he's "leaving" Ruby. I don't really see how that helps, though. >=20 > >It's life or death now, but the problem is that humans, even the=20 > >smartest humans do not react to threats unless they are directly in=20 > >front of them in plain view. We have our own evolutionary psychology to= =20 > >blame for this. > > > >We need all the brains of the earth on this one. >=20 > So you're "leaving." Thanks. I guess he thinks his brain is put to better use behind a plow in an agrarian commune. --=20 Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] My first programming koan: If a lambda has the ability to access its context, but there isn't any context to access -- is it still a closure? --yEPQxsgoJgBvi8ip Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAknf68QACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKVyEgCgr0m0T+mtK8Ah00ez+giwgEdp 8mIAn1onNOjI9vwv66shG4YMfGv///g8 =WvSk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --yEPQxsgoJgBvi8ip--