Let us all poop in the bushes instead of in the water. The sea, our primary food source, will thank

Well, only Islamics are bound to do so. & they can only use the left hand for that purpose - as they use the right for eating/serving by hand from communal pots & meals, etc. (This comes from taking the Prophet as a model - he advocated using one hand for eating/drinking, the other for personal cleanliness. The modeling has been extended, in Islamic custom, to a hard & fast rule to live by.)

 

Yah, hardly anyone foresaw that the capitalist hunger for resources & markets could endanger the World. One possible solution is to include to include all those externalities (clean air, water, food & healthcare that don't endanger people) in the economic model, as costs to be allocated across economic activity. The calculation of the costs isn't that difficult, we can already figure most of those. It's the allocation that will become a political football, once we get to that point.

 

Well, the amounts & volumes we're talking about - for a NYC, Los Angeles, Mexico City & so on are enormous. We have the tech to treat graywater & waste water to potable standards - it's the heavy metals & medical by-products, drugs that have passed through human intestinal tracts, etc. that are still a problem. We can continue to work on those, & that work should be prioritized.

Meanwhile, the task is to extend the waste water cleanup tech to all large cities, & especially cities that simply vent the stuff into the nearest water. But yes, the first step in solving the problem is to recognize that there is a problem.

 

Thanks for this.
Consider the cost of how we purify as compared to letting the sun and earth do it for us, as well as the loss of arable land we are dumping into the sea.

That link to Cowspiracy talks of how we are hiding the truth from ourselves and how even the environmentalists are afraid to condemn our eating habits and other environmental issues based on cows because of the huge livestock industry and their wanting to protect their unsustainable practices.

The timeline to catastrophic failure that that links speaks about is rather unnerving.

I hope they are wrong, but think they are more right than wrong. My own off the cuff estimate was 20 years before I even found that documentary.

Regards
DL

 

Really?
http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4683e/y4683e06.htm

Emphasis (underlining) added: We eat about 173kg/person/year of grains (cereals), and we eat about 16.3kg/person/year of fish. Which is our primary food source?

 

Yah, I see this note a coupla of times in the thread. Is the sea our primary food source? I thought catches were declining Worldwide, & dropping. TMK, the annual World take from the sea has been dropping for decades - ever since the 1950s?

 

Many thanks. I will adjust my views accordingly.

Regards
DL

 

I have been corrected on this but still think gaining arable land to replace what is being lost and reducing the pollution that is killing our fish stocks is still a good idea. Given that we still use a lot of energy to raise and consume land animals like beef, which pollute quite a bit on their own, I still think we should wean ourselves off of eating so much meat.

You might agree if you view that link I gave. I saw a slightly different version of it on Netflix and that version is what got me thinking of this issue.

Regards
DL

 

Then wean yourself off eating so much red meat. I did. It is not as hard as people imagine. Just lower your meat portions and mix it in with other things and eventually the other things become more or less the same whether they have meat in them or not--like rice-based dishes, etc. even when I get take out like beef low mein, most of the meat goes to the dog. Just having a little in there during cooking more or less has the same effect of having a lot in there.

The problem with seafood is not just pollution though. There are some places that way overfish.

 

True but fish stocks are down thanks to pollution as well. That pollution is also killing a lot of wildlife and birds that also eat fish.

The link above covers much of that and will tell you how fast we are driving many species to extinction.

As to my family. I have one vegetarian son who consumes only chicken and the rest of us have already decreased our red meat consumption to near 0 and mostly eat chicken and a bit of pork.

Regards
DL

 

Many of these dead birds eat sea born plastics.



Regards
DL

 

Private, individual septic systems put pure water back in the aquifer and bacteria eat the solids. Actually a lot of properties in cities had private septic systems however they required bigger lots and when the city decided to increase density the threat of too many septic systems and too little ground for proper drainage caused them to construct public sewers which today send the effluent to water treatment plant where it is 'digested' and the solids are separated and often used for fertilizer. Plastic is a separate issue. I heard that a maker of those plastic rings that hold six-pack cans together was going to make edible holders...haven't seen any yet though.

Speaking of cities....Why do we need them today? With technology isn't it viable to live where you want? Why the need for living in a large, high population density metropolitan area? Grow your own food, take care of your own sewage, start a compost pile....I do.

 

Absolutely! IMO this is a key part of the solution.

 

there are 14K species of ants. We can probably spare a few.

 

Good idea....Beats throwing it in the streets.

 

Yah. But if the human population doesn't level off & start declining soon, there won't be anyplace to convert into arable land - the energy & water & other input costs will be beyond any single nation's reach - & I don't know that NATO, SEATO, EU, UN, etc. are going to have the will nor the economics nor trained manpower to get in there & do - especially if the locals/gov. @ the sites (Africa? Australia? Gobi/Manchuria?) object.

I think the economics & logistics of the effort to feed everyone @ least a basic minimum diet will push us all to textured soya, flavored to whatever fits into our cultural matrix. Meat & milk & protein on the hoof may simply become too expensive - in terms of energy consumption, labor intensity, transport - climate change & aquifer depletion in the US (maybe elsewhere - I'm not sure of the status elsewhere in the World) may accelerate that trend.

I think we'll wind up in megaplexes - maybe partially buried (energy pluses there, plus the ability to mine, get water, lower heating/cooling costs, air treatment, maybe raise crops in ag sections, etc.) We really need to look @ the results of the closed arcologies - Biodome, habitats, etc. & the experimental approximations to long-term deep-space voyages - a lot of the basic research should be applicable, maybe scalable.

 

I wouldn't worry about that. Nature has a way of exterminating huge population blocks and If nature doesn't do it, we humans will in whatever way we can. I think it is a basic instinct actually. Besides, everyone in the U.S. could fit into the State of Texas. There is more vacant land in the U.S. than there is populated land.

That is already happening...Ever had a Jack In The Box taco?

I think we'll end up scattering with the continuing technological advances we won't have to crowd together in huge metropolitan areas.

 

I think most people poop in the toilet.

 

Composting toilets are are good idea- don't waste water, no flies, no contamination of watercourses.

 

I read somewhere that it is applied to crops as fertiliser- dunno about the processing.

 

It would be much better to put our human waste on land. That is kind of a no brainer. But the change could not come about without resistance. The large fertilizer companies would fight it tooth and nail. It would also be expensive to change the way waste is processed. One thing to consider is groundwater pollution. Commercial fertilizers are more concentrated and do not feed the biology of the soil. What is more polluting and 8-8-8, or 10-10-10, 34-0-0, or a natural fertilizer closer to 1-1-1 ?

 

I like cities, overall. Symphony, opera, various music & other arts performances live. Yah, you can pipe in stuff over the 'net - but it's not the same. Even movies are different in a large screen vs. a smaller screen vs. @ home. The same for sunk costs & infrastructure - hospitals, museums, universities, ethnic neighborhoods & their assorted shops. Also water, sewer, garbage collection, power, transportation, medical care - the latter a big issue in dispersed more-rural US.

You also get economies of scale on some basic services - high-tech medical/health care, for instance. & if you control air/water flows & inputs, you can finally secure the population from airborne infection, poison gasses - the low-tech WMDs. If we can culture enough food & secure power generation, each arcology could stand alone, if push came to shove. & if the habitats are mostly underground, it becomes much easier to shield against EMP, radiation, & most other conventional attacks.

With the basics covered, a way to either capture & reuse water, air, food - theoretically each arcology could survive until the power ran out. If we ever crack nuclear fusion, that would mean an unlimited lifespan - @ least for the plant.

 

Human urine can be applied with no processing. In fact, it is safer without processing and conserves 2,000 gallons of water per person per year. And the average person makes 50 lbs of nitrogen per year in urine alone. Pharmaceutical residues also break down in the soil and stay out of our water.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-urine-is-an-effective-fertilizer/ here is some information on using urine as fertilizer.

 

I get free waste disposal through the system because I am on a well and do not get a water bill which includes drainage.

I am one of the few in this city like that so I do not know where you get "Actually a lot of properties in cities had private septic systems".

We need cities because of trade and production. Man lost his ability and freedom to live the way you suggest when the world decided to industrialise.

Living as you want may be impossible as we do not have the artisans that made rural living enjoyable. We could reverse this trend but would have to start training artisans and people who do not mind the isolation of country life.

Regards
DL