foodimista wrote:
Which rather begs the question: "Apart from manufacturing all his food in industrial processes, what else would man do on such a planet?"
Even though you were clearly on the opposite side of the fence to my argument I'd say good post.
We're getting a bit off topic from "climate change" but it's an interesting topic anyway:
It's very true that we have left desert in many places where there used to be civilisation and it's telling that the ONLY civilisation that managed to hold itself together while others went through repeated cycles of collapse has now gone down the western route of mining the soil.
The point is, though, that with mastery of energy
flows there's no reason why a civilisation that understands and values such things as the phosphate cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the carbon cycle etc couldn't keep going indefinitely. It's like the technotopian solution of skyscraper farms in cities. They would work
technically but they run counter to how business works. The land they would be built on is so expensive that the builder of the skyscraper could only make money if food was ridiculously expensive and far easier to just rent out the rooms in the buildings. Of course, there's no reason why we couldn't use that idea but out in the sticks: build farming skyscrapers and solar powered de-sal plants in the middle of the desert where land is cheap, and transport it to the cities via electric rail. Very doable and much more cost effective than building the skyscrapers in the cities.
And trying desperately to bring things back on topic: if we take the (by no means certain) tack that climate change really means climate instability, then controlling climate by growing food in what amount to controlled environments would help people survive even in an otherwise unstable climate.
To be honest I don't even see that as being too different than the idea that you could take a chimpanzee like creature, teach it to make fire and teach it to talk.
