One Finite Planet

Lessons from SciFi: Future Expansion

First Published:

By Monomorphic at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Elvis using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4353656The actor Morgan Freeman has declared he is determined to produce a movie based on the novel ‘Rendevous with Rama’ by Arthur C Clarke.  Great Sci-Fi writers like Clarke are renown for their insights in to the possible future and this novel is no exception.  After again reading this novel I realised the insights into possible future with regard to the human population is extremely thought provoking.

The bottom line is that the full analysis is that this solar system does cannot offer a lot of accommodation for human beings beyond earth.

There are four rocky planets. Earth is already occupied, Venus is a superheated hell completely and it is beyond even Clarke’s imagination that it could be made habitable. In the universe of ‘Rama’ a 100,000 humans can live on a the small most hospitable area of Mercury but really Mars is the best possibility.  Without Earth’s magnetic shield the Radiation the radiation is a killer, average surface temperatures on even in summer at the equator have a daily minimum of -70 degrees, there is no oxygen and at Mars atmospheric pressure water boils at only 10 degrees above freezing.

That leaves moons.  Arthur C Clark has people living on the larger moons from Earth’s moon all the way out to Triton (a moon of Neptune). Still, even in the wildest dreams of science fiction,  all these colonies combined have a population insignificant compared to Earth.

During the 2oth century, the population of Earth more than tripled.  There is simple nothing even close to the equivalent of even one more Earth of space in this solar system in our wildest dreams.  The scope to repeat the 20th century is a far greater challenge.

The lesson here is that to find real room for expansion, humans will either have to construct their own planets, or live inside planets/moons,  or that ultimate dream, travel to planets around other stars.  All of these bring many complex questions, but the clear fact is that finding significantly more real room for expansion in term of where we can live, is very far in the future.

 

 

Comment?

Table of Contents

Categories

Crime: A litmus test for inequality?

Around the world, many countries have both a battle with equality for some racial groups and minorities and also a battle with crime-rates within and by those same groups.

Should we consider crime rates the real sentinels of problems and a solution require focusing on factors behind crime rates? Or is the correct response to rising crime rates or crime rates within specific groups an adoption of being “tough on crime”, thus increasing rates of incarceration and even deaths in custody for oppressed minorities and racial groups?

This is an exploration of not adjusting the level of penalties and instead focusing on the core issues and inequalities behind crime-rates. It is clear that it is “damaged people” in general rather than specific racial groups that correlate with elevated crime rates, so why not use crime rates to identify who is facing inequality?

Read More »

Optimum population of humans: Ideally, how many people can, or should, the Earth support?

It can seem like the human population can grow forever, but analysis makes it clear growth must stop eventually. The question becomes at what level should it stop?

Do we go for the maximum possible people before everything collapses, even if average living standards could be far better with a smaller population? Is it like a chicken farm in an egg farm, where having less chickens is seen as preferable if it means chickens get better living conditions? What population strikes the right balance for humans?

Read More »

Influence: No, they don’t want to sell your data, it’s worse.

I recently read another comment containing the ‘I don’t want google getting more of my data to sell’ and it reminded me of the question, ‘why is your data valuable?’, and the common myth that Facebook and Google etc want your data so they can sell it.

They don’t want to sell your data, but the reality, is more sinister: they want the power to change your thinking.

Read More »

A different perspective: Humans maybe the greatest threat to life on Earth but also the only hope.

The title ‘one finite planet’ can be mistaken to be yet another proclamation of how we live on this amazing planet which could even be unique, and we humans are foolishly placing it all at risk. Boring.

No. Instead, the perspective is we are living on a planet that is naturally hostile to humans, where nature dictates only a limited total amount of life, can only exist for a limited time, and that time is almost at an end. When seen from this perspective, even the environment mission changes from just not interfering, to the more complex task of tackling the challenge of overcoming nature, while yes, quite importantly, not bringing life to an early end in the process.

Read More »

The Power struggle in Australia.

From “the biggest corruption scandal ever” in Brazil, problems in Venezuela, human rights in Saudi Arabia and Iran, to the problems caused by lobbyists against action on climate change, an abundance of fossil fuels is a source of political power, yet rarely force for good, and Australia, with a wealth of coal and gas, is not spared.

The current crisis in Ukraine not only drives up energy prices globally, but it also creates a dilemma for gas producing nations.

Read More »

Why Population growth even before the explosion?

Throughout history, although no other species on Earth has experienced such long term overall population growth, even before the recent population explosion, the human population kept slowly growing.

Yes, we recently had an unprecedented population explosion, driven by is hidden by by the near elimination of previously tragic infant mortality, but against the background of long term growth, many of us never didn’t even realise their was an explosion.

But what drove population growth even before the explosion? What will now happen as the explosion ends?

Read More »