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Re: Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)



In article <01bbe1f3$722a54e0$6b093593@Rick> "Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@saintmarys.edu> writes:
 > 
 > jw <jwas@ix.netcom.com> wrote (along with a lot of other fantasy-world
 > ramblings)
 > 
 > > But we can be *certain* that at least many trillions of 
 > > human  beings can be sustained comfortably in this solar 
 > > system alone. When we get that many (not soon, if ever!), 
 > > we can take another look. It will all look very different
 > > then; no use second-guessing our wise descendants.
 > > 
 > 
 > Not without an unlimited, essentially free source of readily available
 > energy.  Fresh water supplies will effectively limit human populations on
 > earth to figures FAR, FAR below your 'trillions', and off-planet habitation
 > within the solar system will require HUGE energy supplies to make any large
 > colonies viable.  We aren't doing that great of a job providing for the 6
 > billion we currently have.
 > 
 > I think you (and most people in general) have no real feel for large
 > numbers--10^12 (a trillion in American usuage) has little meaning for most.
 >  Take the U.S. budget at $1.5 x 10^12.  If collected in dollar bills and
 > stacked up, the pile would reach over a third of the way to the moon.  Even
 > such 'silly' examples as this are useless in trying to convey the meaning
 > of numbers like 6.02x10^23 (the number of atoms or molecules in on gram
 > atomic/molecular weight of a material).  Eighteen grams of water contain
 > this many molecules (also known as Avagadro's number), but how many is
 > that?  The ESTIMATED number of atoms in the Universe is around 10^80.  Read
 > a good book on Cosmology to see where such numbers come from, how we know
 > as much as we do about the Universe, and what the limits to your kinds of
 > fantasies are. 
 > 
 > Rick Tarara
 
Yes, but what is the actual numerical argument about how fresh water supplies
limit population?
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.



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