How to feed the world.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Humans aren't so different from any other animal population. The more nutrients you make available, the more the population will expand. I say let's educate and reduce the birth rate, rather than continue seeking more parts of the planet to deplete.

I concur.
My feeling is that you can educate people until you're blue in the face but you'll never stop them fucking and breeding in an uncontrolled manner. Mass starvation and war is inevitable imo. - Call me cynical. :sighsm:

[mistermack]

I don't actually understand this idea? You want to suck organics up from the ocean floor and use them as fertiliser in the ocean? I think scientists might call that engineered eutrophication...

I don't think so. That's much more common in fresh water, and occasionally in very shallow coastal waters, but is not a feature of deep ocean.
And in salt water, it's only associated with raised nitrogen levels from land run-offs.
The deep open ocean seems to prohibit it.

[mistermack]

Humans aren't so different from any other animal population. The more nutrients you make available, the more the population will expand. I say let's educate and reduce the birth rate, rather than continue seeking more parts of the planet to deplete.

I agree we should do that. But I don't agree it's either one, or the other.
And deplete isn't a good word. The open deep oceans are virtual deserts as it is.
I would say it's the opposite of deplete. If you add biomass to the food chain, it would relieve the pressure on threatened species.

[Blondie]

Why don't we simply genetically engineer a new race of human beings which utilize photosynthesis to augment/supplant our 'natural' metabolic processes, thus reducing, perhaps drastically, our required nutrient intake. Couple this with a feedback loop in our intestinal organs ( it is a well known fact that the majority of nutrients ingested pass through our digestive system unabsorbed ), thus increasing efficiency of the nutritional intake two fold or more.

By this method we could conservatively estimate that the next generation of augmented humans would require less than 25% of the standard daily intake of your out-moded humanbeing today.

[mistermack]

Why don't we simply genetically engineer a new race of human beings which utilize photosynthesis to augment/supplant our 'natural' metabolic processes, thus reducing, perhaps drastically, our required nutrient intake. Couple this with a feedback loop in our intestinal organs ( it is a well known fact that the majority of nutrients ingested pass through our digestive system unabsorbed ), thus increasing efficiency of the nutritional intake two fold or more.

By this method we could conservatively estimate that the next generation of augmented humans would require less than 25% of the standard daily intake of your out-moded humanbeing today.

No need. We eat too much already. Find a way to curb the overeating of western civilizations, and we could get by on less than half of what we eat.

[Tero]

Plus half of the food goes to the dumpster anyway.

[nellikin]

I don't actually understand this idea? You want to suck organics up from the ocean floor and use them as fertiliser in the ocean? I think scientists might call that engineered eutrophication...

I don't think so. That's much more common in fresh water, and occasionally in very shallow coastal waters, but is not a feature of deep ocean.
And in salt water, it's only associated with raised nitrogen levels from land run-offs.
The deep open ocean seems to prohibit it.

Are there really that many studies on deep ocean ecology to be sure about that? I am sceptical, without being an expert on the topic. We humans love to make assumptions that "she'll be right" if we see an advantage to us but erring on the side of caution doesn't seem to be in our track record.

As an environmental engineer (masters, currently doing my PhD) with a strong emphasis on understanding natural systems I would certainly recommend great caution before embarking on a project of that scale, which has the potential to be disastrous and irreversible. I get continually depressed when thinking about the short-sided engineering "solutions" humans have come up with which turn out to create more problems than that which they were purporting to solve.

[Blondie]

I don't actually understand this idea? You want to suck organics up from the ocean floor and use them as fertiliser in the ocean? I think scientists might call that engineered eutrophication...

I don't think so. That's much more common in fresh water, and occasionally in very shallow coastal waters, but is not a feature of deep ocean.
And in salt water, it's only associated with raised nitrogen levels from land run-offs.
The deep open ocean seems to prohibit it.

Are there really that many studies on deep ocean ecology to be sure about that? I am sceptical, without being an expert on the topic. We humans love to make assumptions that "she'll be right" if we see an advantage to us but erring on the side of caution doesn't seem to be in our track record.

As an environmental engineer (masters, currently doing my PhD) with a strong emphasis on understanding natural systems I would certainly recommend great caution before embarking on a project of that scale, which has the potential to be disastrous and irreversible. I get continually depressed when thinking about the short-sided engineering "solutions" humans have come up with which turn out to create more problems than that which they were purporting to solve.

You are a supporter of my genetically engineered econo-humans I take it then. There would be zero impact on the environment, and the effects, while irreversible for the subjects, would be terminable - naturally or otherwise. An all together more sound proposal I think.

[FBM]

Humans aren't so different from any other animal population. The more nutrients you make available, the more the population will expand. I say let's educate and reduce the birth rate, rather than continue seeking more parts of the planet to deplete.

I agree we should do that. But I don't agree it's either one, or the other.
And deplete isn't a good word. The open deep oceans are virtual deserts as it is.
I would say it's the opposite of deplete. If you add biomass to the food chain, it would relieve the pressure on threatened species.

Hardly a sterile desert: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8426132.stm

And the depths seem to be regarded as an important carbon sink: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12183244

If we bring up all that carbon from the depths, we'd just be exacerbating an already out-of-control situation.

And I doubt humans will voluntarily stabilize their birth rates. I think they'll have to do it under environmental pressures. No matter how much we educate, there will be huge numbers of people who insist on 'going forth and multiplying' because the babble sez so. If the educated of us stop our own population growth and the religious nuts keep increasing theirs, we'll eventually be overrun with religious nuts, eh?

[Blondie]

It seems we've entered a sex race with religious nutters.

[mistermack]

Are there really that many studies on deep ocean ecology to be sure about that? I am sceptical, without being an expert on the topic. We humans love to make assumptions that "she'll be right" if we see an advantage to us but erring on the side of caution doesn't seem to be in our track record.

Well, I'm not advocating a free-for-all. The experiments with seeding the oceans with minute quantities of iron are being extensively studied, and I would expect the same for this.
But you seem to be saying that doing nothing is harmless. That's miles from the truth. The oceans are currently being denuded by factory fishing, and many species are being driven to extinction. Also, if you believe the theory, the earth is heating up in an uncontrolled way.
So doing nothing is not necessarily the safe option. In fact the opposite. We know the penalties of doing nothing. We don't know of any penalties of this procedure. So at the moment, we're choosing known harm, for fear of some unknown harm.

As an environmental engineer (masters, currently doing my PhD) with a strong emphasis on understanding natural systems I would certainly recommend great caution before embarking on a project of that scale, which has the potential to be disastrous and irreversible. I get continually depressed when thinking about the short-sided engineering "solutions" humans have come up with which turn out to create more problems than that which they were purporting to solve.

As a former truck driver, and ice-cream-seller, with a strong emphasis on eating lots of ice-cream myself, I would recommend starting with smaller scale operations, and studying the effects, positive and negative.
And I get continually depressed when I look at the problems we have ignored, and allowed to grow, apparently on the assumption that they will just go away.

[mistermack]

Hardly a sterile desert: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8426132

Well, deserts always have an amazing variety of animals. But if practically nothing GREEN is growing, over half the earth's surface, I think desert is a fair word. The creatures in the abyss feed on organic matter that is derived originally from green phytoplankton that grew in nutrient rich areas, and either swims or drifts into the "desert" zone.
They are mostly extremely small, and few and far between, but there is, as the article states, an amazing variety. It's still desert though, if nothing green is growing.

And the depths seem to be regarded as an important carbon sink: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12183244

If we bring up all that carbon from the depths, we'd just be exacerbating an already out-of-control situation.

Of course that would have to be monitored and modelled. However, the harmful carbon (if it really is harmful) is dissolved CO2, which is present at all depths. Carbon in solid form will either slowly sink, or be eaten, so is hardly going to get into the air.
On the contrary, the green phytoplankton fix CO2 from the surface water, and give off oxygen. And they provide food for hard shelled plankton, which convert CO2 into carbonate shells, which also fix it for thousands of years. So the overall effect on the atmosphere is likely to be a reduction in CO2.

[FBM]

Hardly a sterile desert: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8426132

Well, deserts always have an amazing variety of animals. But if practically nothing GREEN is growing, over half the earth's surface, I think desert is a fair word. The creatures in the abyss feed on organic matter that is derived originally from green phytoplankton that grew in nutrient rich areas, and either swims or drifts into the "desert" zone.
They are mostly extremely small, and few and far between, but there is, as the article states, an amazing variety. It's still desert though, if nothing green is growing.

We've already pushed the definition of 'desert' to include oceans. We probably ought not to push it any further to specify green growth. There's a lot of living biomass down there. Hardly sterile.

And the depths seem to be regarded as an important carbon sink: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12183244

If we bring up all that carbon from the depths, we'd just be exacerbating an already out-of-control situation.

Of course that would have to be monitored and modelled. However, the harmful carbon (if it really is harmful) is dissolved CO2, which is present at all depths. Carbon in solid form will either slowly sink, or be eaten, so is hardly going to get into the air.
On the contrary, the green phytoplankton fix CO2 from the surface water, and give off oxygen. And they provide food for hard shelled plankton, which convert CO2 into carbonate shells, which also fix it for thousands of years. So the overall effect on the atmosphere is likely to be a reduction in CO2.

But...if we liberate all that CO2 by using it for food and/or energy, it works the same way as bringing up fossil fuels. We won't be making plankton or carbonate shells out of all that, will we? It's already fixed for thousands or millions of years where it is. Yanking around on it is just going to interfere with its carbon-sink function. (o,0)

[mistermack]

But...if we liberate all that CO2 by using it for food and/or energy, it works the same way as bringing up fossil fuels. We won't be making plankton or carbonate shells out of all that, will we? It's already fixed for thousands or millions of years where it is. Yanking around on it is just going to interfere with its carbon-sink function. (o,0)

I'm not exactly sure what carbon you mean here.
Any solid carbonate particles are likely to sink back down pretty quickly. There isn't much detritis on the ocean bottom that is readily edible, otherwise it would have been already eaten. And having been eaten, the carbon gets given off as CO2 by the animals. There is nothing green in the depths to reverse that.

The food chain is based on green phytoplankton, which get their carbon from the dissolved CO2 and their energy from the sun. The point of sucking up the nutrients isn't to provide carbon. That is freely available in the surface water. It's all the other minerals, like Iron etc, that enable the phytoplankton to grow.

So I don't see how you would be adding CO2 to the surface water.

[FBM]

The organisms in the deep-sea food chain circulate the CO2 at great depths, and do not bring that stored CO2 to the surface atmosphere where it could contribute to global warming. Bringing those organic compounds to the surface would release that CO2 into the atmosphere where the greenhouse effect does its work.