Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Our brains! 
But yes controlling the climate is a step too far for us at the moment. Ultimately even if we manage in reign in the earth and manage nature we'll still face the prospect of the sun burning out.
We need to colonise other planets!! |
We don't need to go even that far. There's still vast capacity here on Earth. I'm surprised to hear Attenborough blaming overpopulation in Ethiopia for famine, for example. That's thinly-disguised 19th-century Malthusian nonsense. Ethiopia's population density is considerably lower than, say, the UK or France. What it lacks is not breathing space, but the technology and infrastructure to sustain itself. Time and time again, wherever in the modern world a society has become developed, it has overturned Malthus' prediction that population would outstrip agricultural production, resulting in famine and death.