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Population

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Population

from GalCiv2 Forums

 Could a civilization realistically fit billions of people on a Terra-sized planet while sustaining ecological diversity?

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Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

See my Reply #1 above.

Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top

Gee I love these little arguments....

 

Seems to me that when these things are discussed we have to take a lot into the speculation area...

 

One thing came to mind when colonizing Australia came to mind... could the crust support all the mass of the people you want to cram in there?

 

About creating a dyson sphere.. I wonder why somebody would say it will NEVER happen...  I never liked absolute, we've heard so many in the course of history... man will never fly, we'll never go faster than sound... we'll never get to the moon and my favorite one we'll never go faster than light... Hoping somebody we'll find an answer to that one soon :-) I think that need is the driving force of any construction. Like somebody said before it's not because you can build something that you should. Only if you need it should you build it. Need is the mother of all inventions.

 

Keep the argument going it's quite interesting :-)

 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

First, according to the world population clock...

U.S. 310,985,523
World 6,905,774,408
21:59 UTC (EST+5) Mar 14, 2011

Looks like we will be breaking the 7 billion mark soon.

Secondly, I'd like to dispute an earlier statement about 'unsustainable' farming practices in the US Midwest.  Those unsustainable farms have been in operation for well over 100 years now, and except for the dust bowl incident, which taught the need for better soil conservation practices, are amongst the most productive farmland in the world today.

Food technology continues to progress, with genetic manipulation, better irrigation practices, smarter use of fertilizers and herbicides/pesticides, introduction of 'crop friendly' insects to manage the harmful pests, etc.

Most of the third world has yet to tap a lot of the technologies utilized by the farmers in industrialized nations.  India has only recently begun to radically increase their food production utilizing 'modern' techniques, for example.

I've seen some comments about biodiversity and such.  This assumes you need all the creatures in our current ecosystem to produce food, which in fact you do not.  Except for bees/pollinators, and a handful of other creatures, the human food supply can be adapted quite easily to 'deal with' the loss of turtles, frogs, etc.

Also, genetically engineered fish, shrimp, etc. can be introduced that are more tolerant to changing climate and ecosystem requirements, and incidentally can also be engineered to provide more protein/substance, etc.
This doesn't even tap the possibilities of 'sea' farming (kelp farms, etc.). 

Note that the big limiting factor right now for agriculture is lack of available water, which isn't so much a resource availability problem (@ 67% of the world surface is water) as a cost effectiveness problem (purifying seawater and piping it inland for irrigation, for example).  As food supplies become more stressed, the more 'exotic' solutions will become acceptable and necessary.

Global food production is key, so if you have a hard season in one region, others can pick up the slack.  Also, utilizing more of the land along the equator will also be key, as a year round growing season may be preferable for many crops to, say, Canada and Russia's shorter growing seasons.

Finally, if you move people onto the mountains and other less useful terrain (where agriculture is more difficult), that frees up a lot of floodplains and such for more food production.  Not to mention those underwater cities (SeaLab 2020).  Keep in mind you will need to utilize some 'former' deserts for additional food production, utilizing that purified water you are pumping in from the coast.

Energy continues to be an issue, but mostly because the public has 'issues' with several forms of energy production (nuclear power is scary, windmills kill birds, and solar panels take up too much space/destroy the view).  As fossil fuels become more scarce, widespread adoption of nuclear and renewable energy will become necessary.

Keep in mind that France leads the world in nuclear energy, with 78.8% of their power coming from nuclear reactors.  Add solar panels to every rooftop in France, and you could very easily make up that other 21.2% in renewable energy, and throttle back a few nuclear reactors in the daytime when the solar panels are producing energy.

The nice thing about an interstellar culture is that we can look to other planetary bodies for a ready supply of radioactive fuel for said reactors, even if fusion power never pans out.

The bigger issue is getting 20 billion+ people to remain content on the same planet.  This is why Galactic Civilizations has all those morale boosting structures, to keep the citizens content and relatively happy.  As automation displaces more jobs, those 20 billion people are going to have a lot of free time on their hands...

 

Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The Dyson Sphere thing reminded me of a science lecture I attended many years ago.

The lecturer asked the class to describe what a Dyson Sphere would look like from many (1000s?) light years away.

He pointed out that all the enclosed heat of the star would still have to be radiated away through the "floor" of the artifact.

We worked on it for a while, and it appeared to us that it would look an awful lot like a red giant star.  That is, it would have the diameter of such a star, and would be emitting about the energy of such a star. 

So, maybe there is almost any tech available but no FTL, and very distant civs have built Dyson Spheres that simply look like red giants to us from here!