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Comment by ErroneousBosh

13 hours ago

> Wouldn't it be better, at least for the Earth, for everyone to live in cities? This way, more of the world can remain fairly untouched by humans

Where's the food going to come from?

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ErroneousBosh

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defrost  13 hours ago

Farms - with a near infinitesimal number of farmers compared to the numbers living in cities .. exactly as things are trending now.

It's common enough, here at least, to have a small family cropping 13,000 old school acres - tilling, seeding, waiting, harvesting, etc with big machines and Ag-bots.

eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpNMSSGWnOI

  • ErroneousBosh  9 hours ago

    So not really "fairly untouched", then.

    You're going to need more farms and more farmers, and no-one can afford to be shipping food halfway round the planet.

    • defrost  9 hours ago

      Let's see, I didn't make any claim about untouched - although I do have some strong positions on wetlands cover, corridors, wild old forrest, et al but that's a whole other aside.

      I'm just here to point out farming and livestock at suprisng to many scales can be operated by fewer people than you might expect.

      as for: > no-one can afford to be shipping food halfway round the planet.

      what does the Atlas of Economic Complexity type datasets currently say about food volume tonnages and trip lengths? I know that our local farmers co-op

        handles handysize to post-Panamax vessel shipments from Australia, United States, Canada, South America and Europe to key grain markets in Asia, Europe, Central America and the Middle East.

      ( from: https://www.cbh.com.au/exports-overview )

      and there are other grain basins about the globe.

      The challenges for grain shipping going forward likely fall about getting sufficient production of non fossil origin methanol fuel variations for shipping engines.

      That and making sure the front doesn't fall off.

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