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Is it really preventable though? Isn’t it pretty much a basic law of nature that resources will be consumed maximally? If you increase the amount of available e
by zibby8 4y ago
Is it really preventable though? Isn’t it pretty much a basic law of nature that resources will be consumed maximally? If you increase the amount of available energy, it too will be used up until a point where people on the fringes are left wanting. Not sure how you solve that short of some version of population control.
- delecti 4y agoThat is often true, but isn't necessarily always true, and certainly not always true for every resource. Total electricity use in the US has been fairly flat for the past 20 years, and that's despite increasing in population by about 50million over the same period.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoSources for anyone else who wanted to upgrade this from 'internet stranger fact' to 'thing I would repeat to my acquaintances': https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/popchange-data-text.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/popchange...
- nradov 4y agoElectricity use has only stayed flat in the US because we have outsourced much of our heavy industry to China and other countries. If you properly account for the electricity we are effectively importing in the form of manufactured goods then the curve goes way up.
- Retric 4y agoNo, often very small subset of resources become the limit not every single resource. Irrigation can work on land, but kelp don’t have that problem. Conversely on land iron is abundant but at sea it’s a limited resource. Prey population density declines predictors need to expend more energy to get a meal, this space is frequently the limiting factor for prey species not the availability of food or water.