Sedna, space probes?, colonies? what's next?

all those planets are potential colonies for future colonists.

"Tamas Feher" wrote in message ...
No planet or other celestial body is inhabitable by homo sapiens sapiens,
unless it has gravity between 80% to 120% of Earth.

Correct. A Minshara class planet is the ideal condition for us. LOL!

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 02:39:01 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

That's largely true in the continental US where it's mostly gone.

That's largely nonsense.

Your knowledge of wildlife habitat in the continental US is based on
what? A large majority of the land in the lower 48 states has been
converted to crop land, range land, tree farms, etc. Some wild animals
can still be found on some of that land, but their populations are only
a shadow of what they once were.

Range land and "tree farms" (also known as forest) can serve as
wildlife habitat. While certainly we've urbanized a lot of CONUS,
there's a great deal of it that's returning to the wild, and capable
of supporting wildlife. There's actually more forest in the northeast
now than there was two hundred years ago. Wolves have returned to
upper Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as moose.

Using a small part to stand for the whole is exactly the sort of logical
fallacy that Julian Simon was so fond of. A well managed tree farm is
spectacularly poor wildlife habitat, and bears the same resemblence to a
*forest* as a corn field does to a tall grass prairie - both are
monocultures. The managers of tree farms, crop land, and range land do
their best to exclude wildlife to keep them from eating the young trees,
crops, and grass. Go to "The US Road Map" on www.pacificbio.org and you
will see just how much of the CONUS is "returning to the wild".

Sorry, Chicken Little, but the sky isn't falling.

Sorry Dr. Pangloss, but a couple of minor examples constitute a
negligible fraction of the biodiversity issue.

Rand Simberg wrote:

On 25 Mar 2004 22:24:28 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(Christopher M. Jones) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

OK, you said that twice the current population would be
overpopulation. That's equally nonsense.

I said that we *could* double our population, but at the cost of a
substantial portion of our remaining wildlife habitat.

That's not necessarily true.

Someone's obviously never seen the US from the air.
There's lots of room out there.

Someone obviously cannot tell the difference between wildlife habitat
and agricultural land from the air.

Or even driven. California by itself is for the most part empty.

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 20:55:49 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Dick Morris wrote:

I never said that. And you have never said why you think we're so far
from being overpopulated.

At current attainable crop yields, the world could feed 100 billion
people. Africa alone could feed 15 billion.

Reference?

Now, Paul, don't be so rude as to confuse him with facts.

In order to *confuse* me with facts, you first have to *present* me with
some facts - not just libertarian/free-market dogma. That the world
could feed 100 billion people is not a "fact", especially considering
that we're only a little over 5% of the way to that figure and the
biosphere is already showing signs of stress. Modern agriculture is
very energy intensive, and the maximum attainable crop yields require
the optimum climate, plus the optimum application of fertilizer, water,
and pesticides. One cannot simply assume that we can achieve the
maximum possible crop yields over the entire Earth.

Dick Morris wrote:

In order to *confuse* me with facts, you first have to *present* me with
some facts - not just libertarian/free-market dogma. That the world
could feed 100 billion people is not a "fact", especially considering
that we're only a little over 5% of the way to that figure and the
biosphere is already showing signs of stress. Modern agriculture is
very energy intensive, and the maximum attainable crop yields require
the optimum climate, plus the optimum application of fertilizer, water,
and pesticides. One cannot simply assume that we can achieve the
maximum possible crop yields over the entire Earth.

Modern agriculture certainly is energy intensive, but energy is not
in short supply (fossil fuels will eventually be, but they are substitutable.)
However, don't overstate the case -- we use more energy to *cook* food
than we do to grow it, and both energy uses are a small fraction of the
energy used in other sectors of the economy.

Engineering on a large scale to deliver water and large increases
in the use of fertilizer in places like Africa would also be necessary.
Feeding 100 billion people would certainly have major impact on the
rest of the biosphere. It would also probably require more varieties
of crops optimized for various climates. OTOH, maximum crop yields are
likely to continue to increase.

The important point is that 100 billion is an order of magnitude greater
than the projected peak population in the next few centuries.

Paul

Dick Morris wrote:

Someone obviously cannot tell the difference between wildlife habitat
and agricultural land from the air.


Look for the big checkerboard pattern; it's a dead giveaway.




Or even driven. California by itself is for the most part empty.


Try northern Montana sometime- I'm from North Dakota, and that area
makes _us_ look crowded.

Pat

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 04:56:58 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Range land and "tree farms" (also known as forest) can serve as
wildlife habitat. While certainly we've urbanized a lot of CONUS,
there's a great deal of it that's returning to the wild, and capable
of supporting wildlife. There's actually more forest in the northeast
now than there was two hundred years ago. Wolves have returned to
upper Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as moose.

Using a small part to stand for the whole is exactly the sort of logical
fallacy that Julian Simon was so fond of. A well managed tree farm is
spectacularly poor wildlife habitat, and bears the same resemblence to a
*forest* as a corn field does to a tall grass prairie - both are
monocultures.

Very little of the northeast is treefarms. It has returned to the
wild.

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 04:58:13 GMT, in a place far, far away, Dick
Morris made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

OK, you said that twice the current population would be
overpopulation. That's equally nonsense.

I said that we *could* double our population, but at the cost of a
substantial portion of our remaining wildlife habitat.

That's not necessarily true.

Someone's obviously never seen the US from the air.
There's lots of room out there.

Someone obviously cannot tell the difference between wildlife habitat
and agricultural land from the air.

There is no difference, except in how much technology is applied to
them.

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Someone obviously cannot tell the difference between wildlife habitat
and agricultural land from the air.

There is no difference, except in how much technology is applied to
them.

The important difference is the species diversity. Agricultural land is
much more monocultural than wild land. This is important because
diverse ecosystems are much more robust than monocultures; the latter
are much more likely to collapse when perturbed.

Best,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 20:09:39 -0500, in a place far, far away, Joe
Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Someone obviously cannot tell the difference between wildlife habitat
and agricultural land from the air.

There is no difference, except in how much technology is applied to
them.

The important difference is the species diversity. Agricultural land is
much more monocultural than wild land. This is important because
diverse ecosystems are much more robust than monocultures; the latter
are much more likely to collapse when perturbed.

My point is that one can easily be transformed into the other.