this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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solarpunk memes

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Two thoughts on this meme - self-reliance is necessary, and self-reliance is not sufficient, because if capitalism destroys the climate your homestead goes with it.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

According to Google, there's

5.34 million miles of arable land on earth

8 billion population

8 billion / 5.34 million = 1489 miles per person

Have I done something wrong? Seems like enough space, no?

Edit: lol I'm dumb

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

You divided backwards. It should be land divided by population. 5.34m / 8b = 0.0006675 miles^2 per person.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That math makes it 1,489 people per mile of arable land.

Edit: don't forget that not everyone lives on arable land. We also have apartments and skyscrapers that house people, thus packing in many more people per mile than individual.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

My math came out to one 41 meter square of land per person. 1.34b hectares/8b people*(100m*100m/hectare)=1675m^2/person which is a square of 41m per side.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Arable just means it's possible to turn it into farmland, not that it would actually be useful to grow crops.

The largest problem is that the global population has exceeded the natural limitations of the nitrogen cycle. Meaning we are utilizing more nitrogen from the soil than it can naturally fixate.

Without petroleum based fertilizers we wouldn't be able to sustain the global population we have today. Without the Haber-Bosch process our population would likely be hovering around 4 billion instead of 8 billion.