Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I hear you Tim....

... hummm... and weren't we talking about armed force ....

... isn't perhaps the fear of this historical expansion and aggression and feelings of betrayal, occupation, repression expressed and reflected in the actions of those that we see as opposing us?

i.e Palestine, or most of the Middle East for that matter?

... does might equal right.... that I suppose is the fundamental question that we need to ask ourselves!

... And so it goes on ... forever?.... I hope not.... I just don't believe it's sustainable

tim resent away my friend, it couldda been anyone,including politicians, that I was refering too dude ...

BK: No hard feelings, I took it way too far myself... Clearly I am biased and not seeing the big picture, apologies to anyone I offended.

OK, time for a change in subject I think.

Heres a good one.... What would it take for humanity to last for the next 1000 years. Looking at current trends, do you think we could make it that far?

some times I wonder about that Tim. I wonder about which event would possibly lead to the demise of humanity - extreme disease, war, meteor strike, alien invasion, global cooling. There are so many possibilities.
Good question.

Is all good Tim , if everyone thought the same way, the world would be a boring place

bees not pollinating..............how long did old Albert give us in that scenario?

1000 years? the way we're going? nope.

I am putting my money on alien intervention to save the day. They will introduce bees which had been infected with an alien/human genetic mutator, so they can bread a race of alien-human hybrids...

Oh... that was a movie...

which one? i want to DL

Not sure... but think it was one of the "B" grade ones

My goodness people.... didn't you ever watch X files.... Geesh!!!

Its a government conspiracy...

missed too many around that time, went from bees to antarctica to asthma meds to aliens.............

on that vane i saw a snipet of a realy interesting program on TV last weekend about a potential problem with using ethanol as an energy scource, biggest concern was that exising technollogy uses grain sucha s weat and corn to produce ethanol

they said in the US the price of corn has almost doubled in the past 12mths as corn is diverted to producing ethanol

problem is that animals are lot fed on corn such as Beef and chicken and their prices are going up

As is the price of corn in Mexico and other nations.
Ethanol has too many issues to be considered a good choice. Butanol is a better choice and is almost a direct replacement for petrol (Gasoline to those from USA and other places;)) .
What is needed is a means of making butanol from material like corn stalks, sawdust, and other "waste" streams which do not compete with food production.
I doubt that this will be of much long term value, given the increasing consumption of petroleum products and the fact that petroleum is a finite resource. It will just be used to expand the amount of fuel being consumed in total.

Back on Topic,
I feel that humanity will not last the next 100 years without massive famine, catastrophic natural events and international conflict (especially over oil, gas and other fuels), so that there will most likely be the "haves" and the "have nots", but unlike now, the gap will be significantly wider.

To survive another 1000 years? That would require mankind downsizing significantly and working with the planet, rather than raping and destroying everything like now.

I will not be around for more than probably another 30 years, but my children may (and will, I hope), so I plan to give them the skills needed to work with the planet and the education to know how to survive the times ahead.
I do this by discussing the scenarios as I see them and asking how they would react in each case. I teach sustainability by example and involvement in my projects, self reliance by helping them do things and solve problems themselves, while being a sounding board for their ideas, supporting them to make sound decisions.

I hope that I am wrong.

Tony

Well, I see the scenario as sort of like the rats in a cage. When the rats are fed a diet that allows themselves to have ample nutrition they do fine physically, however they also breed indiscriminately and end up in a point of excessive population for the cage. As the population increases you see excessive amounts of abherrent behaviors; infanticide, fighting, and what you could term mental illness, until eventually there is a die off of excess rats, and then they begin the cycle again. Now in a cage where there is a limited amount of food, the rats are more apt to self regulate thier population numbers and maintain an equilibrium between population and resources.

Personally, I have to wonder who will be the winners. Will it be the ones who have large amounts of resources, who eat and breed themselves out of existance or will it be the ones with limited resources who can maintain a balance? Or, will we see an increasing number of our kind who understand the delicate balance and take measures to prevent our own self annihilation?

At the present time I feel like we have too many world "leaders" who are like the rats in the cage. They are only interested in getting as many pellets as they can for themselves, and do not see the potential for destruction because of thier greed.

Kevin

Pessimists and dooms dayers have been around since the birth of humanity, yet the fact is we have more people living longer, happier, and more prosperous lives on earth than ever before.

Things are good and getting better!

Gary