News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by ClumsyPilot on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:53PM (#27170561)
What are you measuring to determine over or underpopulation? Food production? We grow more food that is required to feed current population, much of world's farming is not efficient, done without modern equipment, etx., and then there is the subject of meat - if we stopped growing feed for animals, and instead seitch to vegetarian diet, we could feed a lot more people.

Then there is the argument that glasshouses are 10x as productive as open fields, so if we were to use them predominantly, we could return land to forests.

Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by e3bc54b2 on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:39PM (#27170768)
The modern agriculture just means automating depleting natural aquifers and using up topsoil and abusing chemicals at massive scale. Its the agricultural equivalent of optimizing for next quarter, but losing out on next decade.
Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by ClumsyPilot on Sunday May 16, 2021 @02:03PM (#27175657)
Ancient equivalent is slash-and-burn agriculture, and famines from crop diseases and droughts. I dont think modern vs oldschool juxtaposition is helpfull
Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by e3bc54b2 on Monday May 17, 2021 @02:22AM (#27180549)
Agreed, but the scale makes all the difference. What few million farmers were doing manually is now being done by same number of of people (approximating, but could be wrong) using massive industrial scale machinery.

Quick google-fu is failing me with actual numbers, but I would not be surprised if we are using 3/4/5 orders of magnitude of water every year compared to 3000 years ago.

Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by eru on Sunday May 16, 2021 @01:04AM (#27171350)
How would greenhouses use up top-soil?
Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by JPLeRouzic on Sunday May 16, 2021 @03:03AM (#27171808)
Some places when seen from planes looks literally as vitrified, for example in Netherlands.
Re:The True Size of Africa (2015) by em500 on Sunday May 16, 2021 @05:19AM (#27172388)
One of the largest current national problems in the Netherlands is the overproduction of nitrogen compounds, mostly caused by intensive farming. There's more to sustainability than CO2 and topsoil depletion.