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I am amused by the optimism of these responses. Nobody is concerned that if we end up with cheap nuclear fusion that humanity won’t use a lot more of it? Would
by mcculley 4y ago
I am amused by the optimism of these responses. Nobody is concerned that if we end up with cheap nuclear fusion that humanity won’t use a lot more of it? Would humans stop building resorts in deserts?
- hedora 4y agoDeserts are a wonderful place for resorts, assuming it is man made desert (like the Sahara) and infinite energy to desalinate and recycle water in an ecologically sound way. We just aren't to that point yet.
- mcculley 4y agoI am completely a proponent of humanity using cheap energy to elevate our standard of living to ridiculous levels. I’m just wondering what we will do with the waste heat. I cannot believe that we will limit ourselves to current levels of consumption.
- dredmorbius 4y agoI was unaware that the Sahara was man-made.
- hedora 4y agoYep; we overfarmed the crap out of it in prehistoric times, apparently.
- dredmorbius 4y agoGiven that the desert formed > 2 mya and human agriculture originated ~12 kya, this seems unlikely. Modern humans themselves originated only 200 kya. <https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.513..401Z https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.513..401Z> <https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1886/origins-of-world-agriculture/ https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1886/origins-of-world-a...>
- hedora 4y agoArticle from 2018 referencing the study I was referring to: https://www.sciencealert.com/green-sahara-early-holocene-agriculture-wild-cereals-cultivation https://www.sciencealert.com/green-sahara-early-holocene-agr...
- dredmorbius 4y agoRight. We do know that the climate of the Sahara differed and it was grasslands in portions for a time. But it wasn't farmed (your own article notes that the seeds found were wild), and the processes which re-asserted the pre-existing desert landscape were not human-induced.