4 ms·

Yup, to me it’s fascinating. We’re another level of the fractal of life, replicating patterns seen in bacterial biofilms, slime molds, circulatory systems, ner

Yup, to me it’s fascinating. We’re another level of the fractal of life, replicating patterns seen in bacterial biofilms, slime molds, circulatory systems, nervous systems, leaves, all manner of multicellular architectures. It’s certainly a bad thing that we are growing in a sort of zero-sum manner against many original ecosystems though. We need to learn to restrain our own growth (a tough one that we’re in the process of trying to beat into all of our heads it seems), and also we need to learn how to maximize the potential for biodiversity to exist within the structure of human occupied areas as well. (A good book on this last subject is “Win-win Ecology”).

pantalaimon 5y ago
That would be great. My fear is that we are more like yeast in a bottle of juice.
- navaati 5y ago
  I hope at least someone will drink the resulting booze…
Robotbeat 5y ago
I think biodiversity within the structure of human occupied areas is very unrealistic and potentially counterproductive. I also think we shouldn’t attempt to constrain growth but instead constrain footprint upon the Earth.
- OrbitRock 5y ago
  I disagree on the first note. The human footprint already covers nearly the entirety of the planet. Conservation of systems that are within or directly adjacent to that footprint is actually very important. Extraordinary amounts of biodiversity are contained in these areas and we need to study how to reconcile our land use with the needs of that biodiversity. We shouldn’t ignore it out of a fear that people will get the wrong idea.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Almost all (80-90%?) of the human footprint is making food. To try to grow our food and ensure biodiversity on the SAME LAND is going to be less productive per acre and would mean even MORE of the Earth’s surface is needed to feed humanity. That’s a losing proposition as we’re already near land usage limits in much of the world that uses less efficient production methods. The best way to ensure biodiversity is to INCREASE the intensity of farming, at the limit to just convert our staple food production to vat-based food production (think methane fermentation ala Calysta Feedkind, or maybe microalgae). Corn and wheat and meat gets highly processed anyway; you can hardly tell it WASNT made in a vat. Fresh fruit and veggies that retain their grown form are a relatively small part of our footprint. Grow food in vats, and the vast majority of the planet can just be like National Parks. But I do think we can think of smart ways to ensure biodiversity under, say, solar arrays. Solar arrays are (or can be made to be) biologically inert. If they are high enough, they can act as a sort of technological canopy over a biodiverse forest floor. And that would only be a small portion of the planet (the rest would be National Parks). We’d use solar electricity to produce food super efficiently from vats. About 2000-4000W nameplate solar per person (at least in the 30N to 30S latitude that most people live in) should be enough to provide the macronutrients for the average person. At high efficiency, that’s about 10 square meters per person at noon. That’s just 100,000 square kilometers to feed 10 billion people, compared to over 50,000,000 square kilometers used for agriculture today (which is half of the habitable land surface of ~100 million km^2). It can be over the ocean, too. That’s just 0.02% of the Earth’s surface.
    - OrbitRock 5y ago
      I agree that we should ideally minimize our agricultural footprint and turn everything else into a nature reserve. But we’ve got to work from the realities of where we are today. Consider this image: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/img/2018-us-land-use_facebook.png https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/img/2018... Notice that for the USA for example, not very much of the land is state or federal parks. The vast majority is used by humans in some way, and the reality is that they’re not about to turn it all into parks. So, while pushing for the protection of as much land as possible, we should also study conservation on land that’s not already a protected area. The book I mentioned has a number of examples where good conservation work has actually been done on such lands.

pantalaimon 5y ago

That would be great. My fear is that we are more like yeast in a bottle of juice.

navaati 5y ago
I hope at least someone will drink the resulting booze…

Robotbeat 5y ago

I think biodiversity within the structure of human occupied areas is very unrealistic and potentially counterproductive. I also think we shouldn’t attempt to constrain growth but instead constrain footprint upon the Earth.

OrbitRock 5y ago
I disagree on the first note. The human footprint already covers nearly the entirety of the planet. Conservation of systems that are within or directly adjacent to that footprint is actually very important. Extraordinary amounts of biodiversity are contained in these areas and we need to study how to reconcile our land use with the needs of that biodiversity. We shouldn’t ignore it out of a fear that people will get the wrong idea.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Almost all (80-90%?) of the human footprint is making food. To try to grow our food and ensure biodiversity on the SAME LAND is going to be less productive per acre and would mean even MORE of the Earth’s surface is needed to feed humanity. That’s a losing proposition as we’re already near land usage limits in much of the world that uses less efficient production methods. The best way to ensure biodiversity is to INCREASE the intensity of farming, at the limit to just convert our staple food production to vat-based food production (think methane fermentation ala Calysta Feedkind, or maybe microalgae). Corn and wheat and meat gets highly processed anyway; you can hardly tell it WASNT made in a vat. Fresh fruit and veggies that retain their grown form are a relatively small part of our footprint. Grow food in vats, and the vast majority of the planet can just be like National Parks. But I do think we can think of smart ways to ensure biodiversity under, say, solar arrays. Solar arrays are (or can be made to be) biologically inert. If they are high enough, they can act as a sort of technological canopy over a biodiverse forest floor. And that would only be a small portion of the planet (the rest would be National Parks). We’d use solar electricity to produce food super efficiently from vats. About 2000-4000W nameplate solar per person (at least in the 30N to 30S latitude that most people live in) should be enough to provide the macronutrients for the average person. At high efficiency, that’s about 10 square meters per person at noon. That’s just 100,000 square kilometers to feed 10 billion people, compared to over 50,000,000 square kilometers used for agriculture today (which is half of the habitable land surface of ~100 million km^2). It can be over the ocean, too. That’s just 0.02% of the Earth’s surface.
  - OrbitRock 5y ago
    I agree that we should ideally minimize our agricultural footprint and turn everything else into a nature reserve. But we’ve got to work from the realities of where we are today. Consider this image: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/img/2018-us-land-use_facebook.png https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/img/2018... Notice that for the USA for example, not very much of the land is state or federal parks. The vast majority is used by humans in some way, and the reality is that they’re not about to turn it all into parks. So, while pushing for the protection of as much land as possible, we should also study conservation on land that’s not already a protected area. The book I mentioned has a number of examples where good conservation work has actually been done on such lands.