Universal basic income doesn�t work.

[Leonhard]

On the contrary, according the FAO only 16.5% of all the land in the US is considered arable. That is, under the definitions that the FAO uses to classify whether something is capable of sustaining a farm, and which doesn't already have crops is only that much. So you could in principle get the number up to around 60%, but after that its over, and I honestly don't think you can even get to that number without destroying nature preserves.

As I said. Finite. Resource.

[Cow Poke]

On the contrary, according the FAO only 16.5% of all the land in the US is considered arable. That is, under the definitions that the FAO uses to classify whether something is capable of sustaining a farm, and which doesn't already have crops is only that much. So you could in principle get the number up to around 60%, but after that its over, and I honestly don't think you can even get to that number without destroying nature preserves.

As I said. Finite. Resource.

So, the key is getting bigger bang out of the buck, which has been happening pretty steadily. Farms are producing far more per acre than they did 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago.

[One Bad Pig]

You can call me a green hippy all you want, but I'd rather we kept our hands off the rainforest.

I'm with you on that. A big problem is that farmers in third world countries tend to be much, much less efficient at using their arable land, and quickly exhaust their soil (which causes them to chop down more rainforest). Rainforests are really, really good at turning the CO₂ we exhale into O₂ we can profitably inhale. Let's keep them around, please.

[Sparko]

On the contrary, according the FAO only 16.5% of all the land in the US is considered arable. That is, under the definitions that the FAO uses to classify whether something is capable of sustaining a farm, and which doesn't already have crops is only that much. So you could in principle get the number up to around 60%, but after that its over, and I honestly don't think you can even get to that number without destroying nature preserves.

As I said. Finite. Resource.

"on the contrary?" YOU were the one who gave the stats in the first place (44%). Are you arguing with yourself now?

My initial point was that there is a LOT of land unused in the world. I wasn't arguing arable land. Not all land has to be. Much land can be converted to be so if need be. Look what we have done in places like Nevada. Turned absolutely dry desert into a green land and a huge city.

The world has a lot of room to grow. And with technology, useless land can be turned into useful land. And that has nothing to do with nature preserves.

You know where I live, right? I can get in my car, leave the city and be in unused forest in 5 minutes and drive for miles without seeing civilization except for the road and some gas stations and an occasional farm house. The reason public transportation isn't as popular in the US as in Europe is because of our low population density. It wouldn't be practical. Go to Canada and there is even more unused land.

[Cow Poke]

Go to Canada and there is even more unused land.

Like all them thar people who promised to do that if Trump won?

[Leonhard]

"on the contrary?" YOU were the one who gave the stats in the first place (44%). Are you arguing with yourself now?

No I just left out some words (bad habit of mine), you can add 16% more to the 44%, and then that's pretty much it. There's more land of course, and some of it can be turned into low-yield farmland.

I'm not saying there aren't technological solutions Sparko. But technology isn't magic. It first of all requires there to be people actively working on it, and companies or governments actively investigating in the research. This is certainly happening with GMO, and I hope we can start rolling that out more. However even then GMO isn't magical, there are biological limits.

We can certainly start to do vertical farming and other things like that but those are quite energy intensive. We'd need to vastly build out our energy grid, and we'd need to do that in a way that avoid pollution. There isn't an easy solution handy.

One thing that has worked is condoms, something which I'm not certain how I feel about as a Catholic. People are simply having fewer kids as they grow wealthier and have access to birth control. This is why the population is stabilising. So there won't be Malthusian catastrophe. In his concept it ends in a resource war which is what ultimately keeps the population size in check. In reality it turns out we just don't have as many children.

You know where I live, right? I can get in my car, leave the city and be in unused forest in 5 minutes

I don't know if that counts as a nature reserve but I'd rather we didn't chop that stuff down to make more wheat and cow land.

Anyway, I'm bowing out of the discussion. I don't want to get sucked back into debating on tweb. Just dropped in to say hi on a rather dull train trip.

God bless you all, see you around.