Thread: Eaarth
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Old 10-29-2010, 09:00 PM   #66 (permalink)
RobertSmalls
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For my part, I believe that humans are a force of change on the planet, but one that's easily overestimated. We have put up about 5 million miČ of cropland, at the expense of forests, jungles, swamps, and badlands. But that is just 2.6% of the surface area of the earth (9% of its land surface). Global climate change would probably be more gradual without us, but it would still happen. The changes will be good for some and bad for others. Probably more bad than good, though (more desertification than the inverse).

Oh well, none of it will matter once we develop an economical method of irrigating with salt water. Talk about making the deserts bloom. This could be accomplished with cheap (it would need to be almost free) desalinization and perhaps some genetic engineering. Or perhaps we'll develop a method of cultivating and harvesting plant life in the ocean.

Sure, it's in the distant future, and humanity will already have been succeeded by an upstart AI before we figure out how to double or octuple the amount of the earth's surface under cultivation.



Humans are so keen to speculate on their destruction.