And now for something completely different...

[--Pete]

Hi,

I'm going to take a bit of liberty with the order of your statements in your post.

Putting a halt on population growth is indeed important but the idea on how to do this is the most difficult thing. The most population growth occurs with dirt poor people. As long as these people remain this poor they will keep getting many children.

This is *the* most important (maybe even the *only* important) ecological question. A reduction of the world population by a factor of ten to a hundred would make this a much better planet for all species, including ours. This reduction needs to start soon, preferably within the next decade. To drop the population by a factor of, say, 10 in the next hundred years would require a (negative) growth rate of approximately -3% per year. This may be unrealistically high. Consider a simple model: each generation produces half as many children as its population. Then a reduction by a factor of ten will take over three generations. That's about a century. Needless to say, this is a very long term problem. But it must be solved, for there is no such thing as a sustainable growth rate (except zero growth).

In theory converting biomass to fuel is a good thing, . . .
. . .
In a while biofuel will be made from plant waste, but untill then biofuel should not be hyped.

Not even in theory. Bio-fuel is still carbon based. Using it solves the 'problem' of making Arabs richer. It does not solve global warming. And, in a world were hunger is a problem, diverting resources from growing food to growing fuel reduces the amount of food available and increases the cost of food. The use of some bio-mass for fuel *is* a good idea, especially if that would be bio-mass that would otherwise be wasted. However, that is not that great an amount, since most bio-mass can be composted to return the nutrients it contains to the soil. Your second statement is very true.

If instead they would use the money to start up a few wind and solar power plants, then at least the money goes to the pay checks of the people working there, creating jobs and not destroying rainforrest or valuable crops.

Wind, tide, wave, solar, etc. are all good options from two perspectives. They are 'renewable' and they have a minimal carbon footprint. If one looks at these technologies from end to end, some meet neither the economic nor the ecological objectives. Wind, where the conditions are right, seems to be the best. Tide and wave require pretty specialized conditions, and the necessity of having to work in a salt water environment puts high demands on the systems. Demands that generate high costs in production and maintenance.

Whether you left out nuclear by oversight or intentionally, I do not know. However, it is the best energy source available to the world now. Modern designs of nuclear plants are extremely safe, even if operated by ignorant people. The actual cost of building a plant, when calculated over its lifetime energy output, is very low (however, the cost of battling the ignorant does drive the price up quite a bit). And the claim that the available fissionable material is too small to make nuclear power viable is a half-truth. If the material is used once and dumped, it is indeed too little, and it does generate large quantities of waste. But if the material is reprocessed, it increases the energy that can be produced per unit of ore by three or more orders of magnitude. And it decreases the amount of waste by about the same factor.

You mentioned economic growth as a driving factor. My question is, why does there have to be economic growth? Why should we (the world) not strive for economic balance? Why is a coffee house that sells the same amount of coffee to the same number of people in the same neighborhood this year as it did last year considered a 'failure'? If last year it generated enough cash to pay the workers a reasonable wage, to cover its expense, and to generate some return for its investors, why does it need to do more? Figure that out, and you come close to figuring out part of the problem (and maybe part of the solution).

--Pete