permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

Harmon writes "...once again -- without cheap oil, there is no possible way 
to feed the current population of humans, probably not even half."

Maybe. But we're doing things now that were undreamed of only a hundred years 
ago. Who knows what secrets lurk in the minds of men? Women, too?

Let's look at the energy problem afresh. What has happened over the past 
century is that complex, combustible hydrocarbons like coal, peat, gas and 
petroleum have accumulated over the immensity of time due to there being no 
consumers. 

Then a sudden abundance of consumers have converted that mass of carbon into 
airborne CO2. The problem is how to reconvert this highly dispersed mass of 
spent energy back into complex hydrocarbons as swiftly as can be engineered. 

I think what we're talking about is a speeded up version of photosynthesis. 
We have the sun for an engine and the sky for fuel. 

I wouldn't write off the human race just yet. If we've been able to figure 
out the spiral of life already, and made ourselves capable of jiggering up 
designer organisms, we should be able to master this relatively simple 
sounding 
techno-fix.

Particularly if our lives depend on it.

Michael

PS-- With an abundance of energy re-supplied, we've also solved the problem 
of agricultural-grade water. Thus the only serious limit that would remain 
would be the home planet's land area. And by then we'll be putting birth 
control 
in the Hostess Twinkies.