Hi Georgina
Thanks also for reading and commenting, I appreciate it. I have some comments on the points you raise. Unfortunately, the space in the essay is limited and I indeed wanted to discuss something more.
I mainly do research in condensed matter (and also in the foundations of physics) and I am aware of some potential technologies, but I'm also aware of their limitations. I could talk about superconductors, silicene, graphene, lithium batteries, solar cells, nuclear energy, etc. But to be honest, not all of them are viable solutions, there are some serious problems. We are still working on this. Today, electronics is reaching the limit of miniaturization. Chips cannot be made smaller and if we do not find a solution to this, energy consumption will not be reduced. There are some promising lines of research, but it would take several decades before they become a reality (if possible). For instance, if we could invent a superconductor that could work at room temperature, we would be able to solve many problems with respect to energy consumption and distribution. Unfortunately, although important advances have been made, the problem has shown to be really complicated for more than century. Some physicists claim that we are close to understand the mechanism of superconductivity and if this is true there would be a revolution very soon. I have some misgivings about this.
It is hard to predict what new technologies will dominate in the following decades. But the most promising source of energy that will gradually replace oil is electricity. Electricity will be mostly produced by solar cells, better batteries and nuclear plants. This may occur in the following two or three decades. Electric cars are already produced in mass (see for instance the Tesla car). So, electric cars will replace gasoline cars also in the following two decades reducing the emission of CO2 and other gases. A study on the current CO2 content in the atmosphere showed that the Earth would require at least 50 years to reabsorb this gas. About 90% of CO2 is produced by industries and the rest by people. Unfortunately, in the following 50 years, it is probable that we will increase the emission of CO2 and if we do not reduce the emission now, it would take a century or more for the Earth to absorb this gas (assuming that we do not destroy our forests, etc.). Already, people is working on developing technologies to reduce the emission rate.
With respect to your concerns on the capacity of the Earth to sustain life, I'm quite confident that we will reach an equilibrium. This is just the law zero of thermodynamics.
A hudred years ago, when global population was less than 2 billion, environmentalist had similar concerns. They even predicted that the Earth would not be able to sustain more than 4 or 5 billion people by the middle of the XX century. Now we are more than 7 billion and I think that the world population will reach a maximum by the rest of this century (less than 12 billion). I'll tell you something. Today the world production of food is enough to feed about three times the current population, the problem is not production but distribution of wealthiness in the world. Whereas in the USA people get fruit from China or the middle east, in Africa people are suffering from famine. My view is that the world population will reach a natural equilibrium, specially driven by the present global cultural and economical tendencies. We see this in Europe.
Really? If only it were that easy
Not that easy, but if our species do not get extinct in the following two centuries, we will reach an equilibrium.
I thank you for your wishes and I wish you the best in the contest too. I'll take a look at your essay and comment on your thread asap.
Best Regards
Israel
