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What made you think I assume we will use the iron only once? We already reuse it pretty well, that's not the problem. It's simply that 3 billion cars is a lot m
by radu_floricica 17y ago
What made you think I assume we will use the iron only once? We already reuse it pretty well, that's not the problem. It's simply that 3 billion cars is a lot more then 800 million, and 10 billion computers is a lot more then 1 billion. No matter how well you reuse, you still have greater numbers _at the same time_.
No offence, but at this point I suspect you are not very intellectually honest. I said at the beginning I do not believe this to be a huge problem - solutions will come. But I do not understand your insistence that there is no problem at all.
- ars 17y agoI don't think you realize just how big the planet is. And iron is a bad example anyway: the entire planet is made of metal (rock is a metal oxide, usually silicon but plenty of others also). There are things that we don't have enough of, but if there is a shortage of one element a substitute will be found (for example graphite in pencils, it was available in just one mine which ran out, and a substitute was found).
- radu_floricica 17y agoI did some napkin calculations once. Try it too. Take available land surface (wikipedia or somewhere else) and divide it by population. Then compute the side of the square this surface represents. Take out living space and roads and rivers and lakes and mountains waste land and garbage land and... well, just do the division and you'll see what i mean.