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Ok, this is a crazy comment, but I have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 a lot and almost every piece of land has something, somewhere built on it.

Ok, this is a crazy comment, but I have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 a lot and almost every piece of land has something, somewhere built on it. Farm, suburb, etc It's depressing but maybe it helps me understand that we are using too much of earth. Do we really need endless farms?

mythrwy 6y ago
If we are going to have endless people we need endless farms probably. It would be cool if we could keep the population of the globe like 1/10 what it is now but I don't know of a humane and rights respecting way to achieve that. Or maybe if we reduce our standard of living it would help but how low can we go? And people aren't going to go for that either. It's a tough problem.
coolspot 6y ago
We got a lot of people to feed. The only right way to stop/reverse climate change is to control population growth. Others ways, like reducing each individual’s carbon footprint or clean energy just gives us excuse to breed more and overwhelm the planet, but later.
- Falling3 6y ago
  Completely disagree. Tje richest 10% of the world is responsible for 50% of CO2 output. I don't know about other metrics, but that I'm sure that pattern isn't just limiter to carbon footprint. We don't have a population problem. We have a problem with Greer and resource use that slashing ourr population - even drastically - will not in any way solve.
  - samatman 6y ago
    The richest 10% of the world also come from regions with stable-to-negative population growth. Those regions are our only hope for moving to a sustainable technological platform while maintaining a high quality of life; we're talking about the people who buy solar panels, windmills, and electric cars, who at least can build nuclear plants, if they get over their political reservations. The poorest 50% of the world would absolutely love to emit more CO2, and will do so just as fast as they can acquire the resources. I don't think any steps to limit population growth really need to be taken, however, other than two things which are good in and of themselves: women's education, and improving access to birth control. But concerns about Earth's carrying capacity need to be taken seriously. Malthus is wrong right up until he isn't, and we should strive to avoid hitting that limit.
jeffbee 6y ago
I believe in the contiguous USA the furthest you can get from a road is only 20 miles. There are no undisturbed places left, really. Unfortunately preserving roadless areas is politically contentious here. Clinton enacted a roadless area rule at the end of his administration and Bush tried to reverse it a week later.
- refurb 6y ago
  Not sure I believe the 20 miles thing unless you could count an old road that hasn't been used in 100 years as "developed". There are massive swaths of land in the lower 48 that are pretty much untouched beyond a few footpaths that are rarely used.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Well, go right ahead and name any place that is, say, fifty miles from a road.
    - rcpt 6y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/20/using-the-best-data-possible-we-set-out-to-find-the-middle-of-nowhere/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/20/using... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 The best one can do is 21 miles from a road - in Yellowstone
      - petepete 6y ago
        I just had a go and thought I'd found somewhere with a 60km road-free radius, then zoomed out and found that I'd strayed into Mexico. Sugar bunker, just NW of Las Vegas has a few places with 50km (~30 miles) though.
  - volkl48 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm pretty sure that statistic includes every Forest Service road on the books.
mikeg8 6y ago
Small scale farming is not always ecologically destructive. We Definitely don’t need endless mono-crop farms, but adding more small scale, diversified, local farms would probably be a net gain for climate. Look into silvopastures and the carbon drawdown benefits. Also helps build in resiliency to the supply chain for food, something we saw the need for at the outset of the lockdown when grocery chains were depleted.

mythrwy 6y ago

If we are going to have endless people we need endless farms probably. It would be cool if we could keep the population of the globe like 1/10 what it is now but I don't know of a humane and rights respecting way to achieve that. Or maybe if we reduce our standard of living it would help but how low can we go? And people aren't going to go for that either. It's a tough problem.

coolspot 6y ago

We got a lot of people to feed. The only right way to stop/reverse climate change is to control population growth. Others ways, like reducing each individual’s carbon footprint or clean energy just gives us excuse to breed more and overwhelm the planet, but later.

Falling3 6y ago
Completely disagree. Tje richest 10% of the world is responsible for 50% of CO2 output. I don't know about other metrics, but that I'm sure that pattern isn't just limiter to carbon footprint. We don't have a population problem. We have a problem with Greer and resource use that slashing ourr population - even drastically - will not in any way solve.
- samatman 6y ago
  The richest 10% of the world also come from regions with stable-to-negative population growth. Those regions are our only hope for moving to a sustainable technological platform while maintaining a high quality of life; we're talking about the people who buy solar panels, windmills, and electric cars, who at least can build nuclear plants, if they get over their political reservations. The poorest 50% of the world would absolutely love to emit more CO2, and will do so just as fast as they can acquire the resources. I don't think any steps to limit population growth really need to be taken, however, other than two things which are good in and of themselves: women's education, and improving access to birth control. But concerns about Earth's carrying capacity need to be taken seriously. Malthus is wrong right up until he isn't, and we should strive to avoid hitting that limit.

jeffbee 6y ago

I believe in the contiguous USA the furthest you can get from a road is only 20 miles. There are no undisturbed places left, really. Unfortunately preserving roadless areas is politically contentious here. Clinton enacted a roadless area rule at the end of his administration and Bush tried to reverse it a week later.

refurb 6y ago
Not sure I believe the 20 miles thing unless you could count an old road that hasn't been used in 100 years as "developed". There are massive swaths of land in the lower 48 that are pretty much untouched beyond a few footpaths that are rarely used.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Well, go right ahead and name any place that is, say, fifty miles from a road.
  - rcpt 6y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/20/using-the-best-data-possible-we-set-out-to-find-the-middle-of-nowhere/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/20/using... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42104894 The best one can do is 21 miles from a road - in Yellowstone
    - petepete 6y ago
      I just had a go and thought I'd found somewhere with a 60km road-free radius, then zoomed out and found that I'd strayed into Mexico. Sugar bunker, just NW of Las Vegas has a few places with 50km (~30 miles) though.
- volkl48 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm pretty sure that statistic includes every Forest Service road on the books.

mikeg8 6y ago

Small scale farming is not always ecologically destructive. We Definitely don’t need endless mono-crop farms, but adding more small scale, diversified, local farms would probably be a net gain for climate. Look into silvopastures and the carbon drawdown benefits. Also helps build in resiliency to the supply chain for food, something we saw the need for at the outset of the lockdown when grocery chains were depleted.