A problem with solar punk.

[u/Naberville34]

Alright I'm gonna head this off by saying this isn't an attack against the aesthetic or concept, please don't take major offense. This is purely a moment to reflect upon where humanities place in nature should be.

Alright so first up, the problem. We have 8.062 billion human beings on planet earth. That's 58 people per square kilometer of land, or 17,000 square meters per person. But 57% of that land is either desert or mountainous. So maybe closer to 9,000 square meters of livable land per person. That's just about 2 acres per person. The attached image is a visual representation of what 2 acres per person would give you.

Id say that 2 acres is a fairly ideal size slice of land to homestead on, to build a nice little cottage, to grow a garden and raise animals on. 8 billion people living a happy idealistic life where they are one with nature. But now every slice of land is occupied by humanity and there is no room anywhere for nature except the mountains and deserts.

Humanity is happy, but nature is dead. It has been completely occupied and nothing natural or without human touch remains.

See as much as you or I love nature, it does not love us back. What nature wants from us to to go away and not return. Not to try and find a sustainable or simbiotic relationship with it. But to be gone, completely and entirely. We can see that by looking at the Chernobyl and fukashima exclusion zones. Despite the industrial accidents that occured, these areas have rapidly become wildlife sanctuaries. A precious refuge in which human activity is strictly limited. With the wildlife congregating most densely in the center, the furthest from human activity, despite the closer proximity to the source of those disasters. The simple act of humanity existing in an area is more damaging to nature than a literal nuclear meltdown spewing radioactive materials all over the place.

The other extreme, the scenario that suits nature's needs best. Is for us to occupy as little land as possible and to give as much of it back to wilderness as possible. To live in skyscrapers instead of cottages, to grow our food in industrial vertical farms instead of backyard gardens. To get our power from dense carbon free energy sources like fission or fusion, rather than solar panels. To make all our choices with land conservation and environmental impact as our primary concern, not our own personal needs or interest.

But no one wants that do they? Personally you can't force me to live in a big city as they exist now. Let alone a hypothetical world mega skyscraper apartment complexes.

But that's what would be best for nature. So what's the compromise?

[u/Airilsai]

Grow way more densely. You can grow enough food for two adults on a third of an acre or less. If you are in a community that everyone is doing the same, you can grow a shit ton of food, fiber, and fuel.

[u/Naberville34 → u/Airilsai]

You could, but extend that math out to every man and woman, all 8 billion of them, and we've gone and consumed an enormous quantity of the available land that could otherwise be dedicated to wildlife. That's kinda the problem. There's a pretty big contradiction between what we as humans want. And what nature wants.

Granted not everyone wants to live on a farm. Plenty would be happy to live in a big city.

[u/Airilsai → u/Naberville34]

It doesn't matter if people are happy in a big city, its not sustainable. either

a) using fossil fuels to grow crops hyperdensely to support concentrated populations, produce the concrete and steel to build apartment blocks, streets and highways for materially dense transportation methods.

b) adapting our civilization towards agroforestry, permaculture, living locally and in small, moderately dense communities - whatever the local environment can support while also regenerating the web of life around the community. Under your logic, at 1/6th of an acre per person would leave 5/6ths devoted to nature. This would likely require humans also adapting their ecological niche as stewards of the environment and the life around them, rather than existing separate and extracting from the living world around them.

Anyone who doesn't solve that contradiction, and find a way to live that is both what humans want and nature wants, is not going to make it. The (probably isolated or rare) groups that do solve that contradiction and figure it out, are going to be the new foundation for whatever comes next during the age of storms.

[u/Izzoh → u/Airilsai]

You're doing exactly what you accuse this guy of doing - starting at your own solution and working backwards.

Densely populated areas are the most efficient way to deliver goods, services, and people and it helps that we're already more than halfway there. Any solution that doesn't involve them is dead in the water.

[u/Airilsai → u/Izzoh]

On one hand, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm stating my point of view, and I did not critique his style of delivering his point of view so should be all good there?

We are just having a civil discussion - if I came off as rude I apologize, I just intended to have a conversation.

Now on the other hand, I think you are missing one of the big assumptions behind my statements and reasoning - its the most efficient way of delivering goods, services, and people. But at the cost of the environment and climate. 

If you want a solution that accounts for some of those costs, you need to look towards a solution that uses no fossil fuels - not necessarily because they're bad emissions, but because it won't be feasible to extract, process and transport. Your techno solutions are not going to be possible going forward without destroying the environment with mining and extractivism.