[rescue] Re: geek vehicles

[Jeremy Nielson]

> Yes, we can produce massive amounts of food using heavy agricultural
> methods, however, they rapidly leech the soil of nutrients and make an
area
> unusable for farming, and living.  For example, Oklahoma, the soil was
> leeched of nutrients and the native plant life was destroyed, end result,
> the dust bowl.  Another one, the middle east, believe it or not, it was
only
> a couple thousand years ago that the middle east was a beutiful place to
> live, but due to deforestation and the leeching of the soil, we now have
> desert.  Its expected that some time in the near future, we will loose the
> central valley as a food source.  That region of the US provides a
> substantial amount of the food that is consumed in this country.  Sure, we
> can support tons of people in the short run, but in the long run, we end
up
> making that area unusable for food production.


I'm not sure if you're aware, but we've been farming in the midwest for a
while now.  In the short term, do you mean "next 200 years"?  It's very
obvious in areas where they had no concept of crop rotation, what happens to
the soils.  Areas like South America, where they burn down the forest for
farms, and then leech the nutrients, and move on is very apparent.  This,
again, isn't a matter of overpopulation.  This is all a matter of
mismanagement, which is an equally unhealthy and urgent problem.

Teach a man to farm properly, and he can gain so much from the land.  Do you
realize that we've been farming in the original Colonial states for almost
400 years now?  And what about the Indians before that?  Lucky for us, those
same indiginous Americans taught us how to properly manage the land, and how
to fertilize, and such...

Mismanagement of any resource will kill us all.  Mismanagement is not,
however, an outcome or a side effect of overpopulation, by itself.
Certainly, areas that have faced overpopulation are seceptable(sp) to
mismanagement, but one is not the extent of the other.

Jeremy Nielson

ps - again, this is all from a young, and arguably naive mind.  Any evidence
to the contrary is much appreciated.  But since this conversation isn't
geeky or rescue oriented, let's take this private emails.  I'm certainly
interested in other people's opinions, though.



>     Zach
> > If we can fit litterally 2.5 billion people into China and India alone,
I
> > don't see the problems for the rest of the planet.  What kind of Big
> > Problems do you see?  Places to store people?  There's plenty of space.
> > Feeding them all?  Here's another statistic... the United States has the
> > production ability to feed the entire planet.  (The only reason we don't
> do
> > so, is that it's not economically "feasable"...as in, if someone isn't
> gonna
> > pay me for a burger, i'm not gonna give it to them)
> >
> > Just curious :)
> >
> > Jeremy Nielson
> >
> >
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