First, thank you for addressing them for the most part. Courtesy here on DU has been in short supply lately and I want to thank you for taking the time to answer. We look at the world and see the same unsustainable practices. We both agree that our Oil supply has already hit Peak Oil and the price for things made with oil will rise, causing misery for those not able or not willing to get off their oil addiction.
* "part of us is still just a biological critter that eats, shits, fights and fucks just like every other mammalian species"
... Agreed. Just go to any bar or club anywhere in the USA. You'll see our ancestral instincts on vivid display, mating instincts gone wild because of a profusion of pheromones and flushing of certain body parts, chest pounding machismo, territorial displays and brutal attacks, etc. But that's only part of what we are. When we sober up the next morning it's back to work (perhaps after "the walk of shame" for some of us).
* "soil and water problems" and "Chemical pollution"
... I assume you mean due to pollution and non-sustainable farming practices. Yes, that is a big problem mostly caused by using fossil fuels. The solution is to rethink chemical industries which now rely on petroleum and other hazardous chemicals and use instead biofuels or bio-engineered bacteria that will naturally produce the desired precursors or in some cases the desired end product. Our farming practices has been the subject of several OPs and posts of mine: they are unsustainable and cannot be expanded to the developing world without serious repercussions and pollution of precious ground water as well as increased draining of already strained aquifer levels. Farming uses 75% of the potable water in the US, 20% of the petroleum used, wastes most of the water it uses and the runoff is highly toxic from pesticides and herbicides or highly charged with fertilizers so as to damage the ecosystems of nearby lakes, rivers, and streams. The solution is high density and vertical greenhouse growing techniques. These use only 5% of the water, produce almost zero waste, and grow up to 30 times the amount of produce per acre of land, they almost never need to use pesticides or herbicides so your produce will actually be healthy for you to eat. The water soluble fertilizers they use are more environment friendly than the farm field versions (many can be derived from such things as sea kelp and bacteria in fact) and can be filtered and reused or used with bio-remediation basins that grow crops for livestock or biofuels. Fracking has to be stopped immediately. There is already a citizens movement to end fracking and we all need to show the puppets in D.C. that they had better listen to us if they want to keep their cushy jobs.
Our factories and processing plants need heat to make their products or to heat water to clean them. I posted months ago about an incredible video I saw of a parabolic solar concentrating mirror 6 feet in diameter that concentrates sunlight down to a small point which becomes hot enough to melt rock. As it reaches a temperature of 3500 degrees Centigrade, they stated that there is no substance known to Man that can withstand the temperatures created with this device.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0_nuvPKIi8 In the video, it melts steel in a couple of seconds. So I started wondering why our current factories don't use larger versions of this idea to supplement their process heat needs. The technology to track the sun perfectly is already very cheap (Bill Gross says he can do it with a $1 microprocessor and two DC motors). I envisioned larger versions of this concentrator focusing on a pipe or a heat sink that will transfer the heat to a working fluid, perhaps mineral oil or other non-toxic fluid, that fluid flowing down the pipe past all the collectors and then down to the factory floor where the solar heat is needed. I also envisioned a revitalized American steel industry powered not by fossil fuels but the direct concentrated sunlight from 40 foot diameter version of this unit. They would have to replace a section of the roof with glass panels or leave that open to the environment and close it down when rain or other weather reduce the sun power. They could then use biofuels made from anything but a food crop to create the heat that they need when the sun isn't cooperating.
Years ago, Campbell's Soup tinkered with the idea for heating the water used to wash the cans before and after filling with product. They may not have had access to the best technology at the time and dropped the project. They were not using parabolic concentrating mirrors, just a simple series of looped piping on the roof. They proved that it worked but dropped the project due to breakdowns during the testing phase. I think it's time they revisited that idea because they only needed water that was 85 to 90 degrees C.
http://sel.me.wisc.edu/trnsys/downloads/trnsedapps/demos/proj96.htmBut while I was searching for that 1970s solar attempt, I found that Campbell's Soup is putting 10 MW of solar PV on one of their factories. So Campbell's is going solar after all.
http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-news/campbells-soup-facility-installs-solar-energy-system-021111/* "deforestation and desertification" and "eutrophication" and "food supply limits due to climate change and rising input costs"
... Caused by unsustainable farming practices. See the solution above. As global climate changes begin to take a larger toll on the environment there will be no question that current farming methods cannot be sustained.
Texas is slated to become a 120 degree desert so I take the problem seriously on a personal level. Greenhouse growing (when I use that term I mean hydroponic or aeroponic growing methods) will no longer be a curiosity or a seasonal supplement, it will be a necessity. Already today grocery stores are putting greenhouses on their roofs to supply fresh, wholesome produce year round.
Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that greenhouses allow trained personnel to tailor the environment to exactly match the needs of the particular plant they are growing; temperature, humidity, light levels, CO2 levels, exact nutrient compounds for each of the 3 growing cycles --computer controlled and automated system that costs less than $3000. Thus the higher yields: higher density growing and perfect growing conditions regardless of the actual weather with the ability to grow 3 or 4 harvests (depends on the plant variety of course) during the year versus 1 or 2 with our current farming practices. Example: greenhouse leaf lettuce can be harvested after 45 days -- potentially 8 harvests per year if grown under artificial light.
* "streamlining of genomes"
... As in the Irish potato blight of the last century; caused solely because they used only a single variety of potato. Agreed most heartily. Fortunately, seed banks are being filled with the full extent of nature's variety. Lack of diversity goes part and parcel with current farming methods. Greenhouse hydroponic growing eliminates the exposure to outdoor pests, fungi, pests in soil, etc., so there is far less susceptibility from a lack of diversity. But I agree that reliance on single varieties will spell disaster if we continue in our current unsustainable ways. I just hope we do not. We have the technology now, it is in use in Canada, the deserts of the USA and Mexico (greenhouse hydroponic growing).
* "habitat destruction, chemical and garbage pollution and economic destabilization" and "ocean acidification"
... We must plan pedestrian friendly cities that are higher density but not oppressive. Unchecked suburban sprawl is a multi-billion dollar industry and will be hard to stop but it is unsustainable and puts residents of the new developments more at the mercy of oil/Peak Oil/price spikes at the pump due to the longer commutes and generally zero access to public transportation.
Rain forests being burned down to provide 1 or 2 years of dirt farming is, to me, just sickening. The farmers get rich soil for only a couple of years so they move on and burn down more rain forest where the cycle starts again. Another stupid farming technique that we already know how to avoid. There is a movement to help the rain forest residents to keep the rain forest as it is and to harvest the variety of valuable fruits and plants that grow there. They are paid to *not* cut down the trees. It is a small victory in a decades long war. More efforts such as that need to be launched. It is possible to save and even replentish the lost rain forest by such arrangements with the local residents.
Garbage pollution is a direct result of having a society where the only ideal is to get more for yourself no matter who you hurt on your climb to the top or even to try to maintain your position on the societal ladder --packaging is super-sized to make it more difficult to steal. The frantic rush to keep up with this consumer society is also to blame. We want to buy cheap crap from overseas (but we don't want to think of the children laboring in factories under horrific conditions so we can have cheap crap). The cheap crap breaks within months or maybe a year... so you go buy the same cheap crap again... and it will fail after a short time... repeat on and on ad infinitum. The solution to this is education of children first and consumers next to let them see the piles and piles of garbage that we produce, and explain the consequences of our actions on the environment. Couple that with some retro thinking: if it's broken, fix it. Don't throw it away. I paid a technician to fix my dish washer that was no longer functioning. The parts he replaced failed within a year but I watched him closely enough that I could figure out how to replace the failing part myself this time. That was 2 1/2 years ago and it's still going strong. $40 in parts instead of $500 to $1000 for a new unit. And I saved it from the landfill.
We already know most of what we need to know to avoid the disaster scenario depicted in your post. By 2020 electric cars, LED lights, renewable energy sources with energy storage, bioplastics and biofuels will be price competitive with their fossil fuels-dependent counterparts. We can and we must make these tiny changes in our lives in order to save billions of lives.
PS, we haven't even started mining the oceans for their raw materials. Since they cover 70% of the planet we have the potential to access the resources while being careful not to disrupt the sensitive ecosystems on the ocean floor. Our story is only half written, IMO. We are not doomed yet if we stop acting stupid and start using the free energy that is all around us.
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