Clean, Cheap, and Abundant Energy Will Decrease the Human Footprint
Tired of all the environmental gloom and doom? Well, here’s a reason to be optimistic about the Earth’s future…the prospects of clean, cheap, and abundant future energy (think renewables, and possibly fusion power) will likely increase fruit and vegetable hothouse farming, which will optimize agriculture and decrease the need for ag land use. The dominant mode of ag animal raising will become “free range” on marginal grasslands, also creating an environment enhancement. The combination will restore much of the world’s damaged habitat.
The world is trending towards a kind of semi-urban sensibility, in which some predict a world population peak of 9.5 billion by 2050, and a reduction to 9 billion by 2100 (then trending downward). This essentially reflects a change in agricultural efficiency from say 100 years ago, when many rural dwellers had large families in order to work relatively low-yield farms. Along with the trending away from rural family farms are further advances in agriculture (higher yields optimizing water and fertilizer use), and the awareness that more fruits/veggies/whole grain, less meat/dairy/cheap carbs are the optimal diet. All told, the world is trending away from intensive land use, and towards optimized indoor hothouses and aquaponics. The only thing holding this back is the energy expense of…
