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The sooner you realize that it isn't left against right, Democrat against Republican, the better off you will be. George Soros' net worth is somewhere around $24.5 billion - would you go to him for advice on how to give? Our Congress is basically a millionaire's club. Of course I don't have to bring up the Pope or the Vatican again.
When you talk about helping refugees my mind cannot get off the picture of one contaminated Petri dish. If you take a Petri dish, with the right agar and incubation temperature/humidity, that was contaminated with one finger print; the bacteria will grow until there is no more food (resources) and then they will all die.
Do you know, what is starting on Wall Street, is not the start of total economic collapse? Do you know exactly how many people can live in the South West before all run out of water? Many scientist think that our Earth can support 9 to 10 billion: How Many People Can Planet Earth Support? | When Will the Human Population Start to Decline?. But that figure will not hold true for all regions of our world - some areas can support more and some less. War, pestilence, economic resources and other factors can and will affect these figures.
I was with you until the last part. All estimates about the "maximum population of Earth" are based on a lot of assumptions. For instance, they reference "arable land" in the article, but arable means "able to be ploughed"(which was established in a time where ploughs were pulled by oxen/horses, and we didn't have the ability to "engineer" terrain). So, while rocky soils are not considered arable, it doesn't mean they can't be made arable, nor does it mean food can't be grown there. It just means crops can't be grown there as easily.
For instance, mountainous areas aren't considered "arable land", but you can grow food there. And if you used indoor/hydroponic gardening(they do it a lot of the desert, and other low-value land areas), you could grow food pretty much everywhere there is sunlight.
Also, I'm not even entirely sure what their calculations are based on. They claim 3.5 billion acres produces two billion tons. But, the average corn yields for the United States are 150+ bushels per acre, at ~56 pounds per bushel. Each acre would produce 4.2 tons of corn. Which means 14.7 billion tons of corn(instead of the claimed 2 billion).
And yields can go much higher than 150 bushels per acre. The record is 504 bushels per acre.
Even if you go with wheat; The average bushels per acre is about 40-60, at ~60 pounds per bushel, or 1.5 tons per acre. Or about 5.25 billion tons.
To get the 2 billion number from 3.5 billion acres, of say, wheat. You are talking yields of only 19 bushels per acre. Which is closer to the average yields during the dark ages, when they used the "three-field system" of crop-rotation(leaving one field fallow per year), and without fertilizers, irrigation, and GMO's.
If you look at potatoes, average crop yields are about 20 tons per acre, that is nearly five times greater yields than corn. And so 3.5 billion acres of potatoes, would be 70 billion tons(35 times more than the cited 2 billion figure).
According to the article above, the calories per acre for irrigated potatoes is 17.8 million. That is enough calories to feed 19.5 people per year at 2,500 calories per day. Irrigated corn would produce enough to feed 13.48 people per year at 2,500 calories per day.
That means, theoretically, the 3.5 billion acres, could produce enough calories to feed 68.25 billion people. And as I said, that is only the arable(ploughable) land. It does not include all other agricultural land. Nor does it include the oceans and lakes(which have fish and other wildlife). So that 68.25 billion number, could easily become 100 billion. And that is based only on conventional farming practices. You could go much higher than that with hydroponics + GMO's(if you're into that kind of thing).
I've heard numbers as high as 300 billion.
Not to say I would want to live in a world with 300 billion people or anything.
Though, if we didn't have GMO's, or irrigation, or fertilizer. But we retained the rest of our knowledge of farming(and our machines). We probably wouldn't even be able to feed all 7 billion of us. In fact, I've heard that without modern farming practices(IE if we farmed like we did in the middle-ages), we could only sustain between 500 million to 2 billion people.
This communist pope once again makes me glad to be an atheist.
Communist pope, that a good one....who knew being a Catholic makes someone a communist.....it is funny to see the right wingers even try to turn against the religious right. Talk about a party tearing apart at the seams. I see an implosion coming with the GOP.
Though, if we didn't have GMO's, or irrigation, or fertilizer. But we retained the rest of our knowledge of farming(and our machines). We probably wouldn't even be able to feed all 7 billion of us. In fact, I've heard that without modern farming practices(IE if we farmed like we did in the middle-ages), we could only sustain between 500 million to 2 billion people.
This is good reading and great links. But there are many other factors in humanity surviving other than just agriculture. As resources become scarce; humans tend to riot/pilfer or take for their own needs. They do not worry about the most productive way to harvest and distribute. You can see this in what just happened in Ferguson or Baltimore and they were not even starving to death. Just picture what would happen in any economic meltdown like what happened in the 1930's - would people endure hardships today like they did then? The projection of sustaining 300 billion is based on humanity abiding by laws.
One thing we can count on is the "Wanna think of themselves as Christian" types will go back to ignoring Christian tenets as soon as the Pope gets back on the airplane to return to the Vatican.
Some of the negative comments here about the Pope make me quite sure that if Jesus Himself came back to earth these "good" Christians and/or Conservatives would find faults and things about him to pick apart.
The pope is not Christian. If you were a Christian you would understand that. Neither is the Catholic church Christian. The pope and the Roman Catholic Church preaches a "different gospel."
"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" — Galatians 1:8
As further evidence that this pope is not Christian, he has made the statement (this week even) that the Quran and the Bible are equally valid. They are not, and Islam is an evil cult that had it's origin nearly 700 years after Christ went to the cross, his last words being, "It is finished."
Christ also said, "I am the first and the last." Rev 1:17
Islam persecutes Christians (and by extension, Christ). Islam denies who Christ is. There is, therefor, no way that the Quran can be considered equally valid.
Last edited by nononsenseguy; 09-26-2015 at 06:05 AM..
So suddenly the left thinks it's ok to mix religion and politics. Noted.
Lol!
Ummm.... what they are saying is that it's NOT OK to be hipocrittes. Nice try though.
And it's amusing that for such a "Christian loving country," Christians seem to be getting awfully defensive when the Pope points out the "love thy neighbor" part of the bible.
NEWSFLASH: *HELPING THE LESS FORTUNATE* is the main message of Christianity!
Right winged Christians may now resume their hate of women, homosexuality and the poor.....
Kasich has a 92 rating from the American Conservative Union. Far from moderate
Come on, Kasich is no conservative ... he, like the vast majority of establishment politicians in the Republicrat party are leftists posing as conservatives.
If you want more of the same, more unfulfilled promises, more false change, then by all means, vote for who the talking heads on TV tell you who to vote for. If, on the other hand, you are a conservative, and you actually see how scewed up things are, from the economy to foreign policy, then look closely at who is being attacked and marginalized by that mainstream group of career establishment politicians, and stop taking the bait.
Every single one of these dudes is bought and paid for with the exception of ONE, who is taking no bribes from anyone, and is using his OWN MONEY. If you want real change, that's the only person who MIGHT be able to deliver ... and I say might, because the opposition to real change is huge, as we see how the media twists every word, and marginalizes his growing popularity. The one person the republicrats fear more than any democrat, is Trump ... Because they don't own him, and can't control him like they do the others. I believe that the republicrats would rather lose the election and see Clinton in the Whitehouse rather than Trump, because its really simple people, the establishment Democrats and the establishment Republicans share one common attribute ... they both serve the establishment, and NOT "we the people".
Just like the NFL, that doesn't care if the Redskins or Cowboys win the game so long as you watch, buy tickets and jerseys, the establishment doesn't care who you vote for, democrat or Republican, because they own both parties, and both parties adhere to the establishment's agenda.
Decade after decade, election cycle after election cycle, and a million false promises later, there is NO EXCUSE for not realizing this by now.
If you are indeed an atheist then you would have no opinion of the pope, especially calling him a communist.
Come again? Why is it then that many Catholics have an opinion about atheists and every other religion?
He's just one guy, with a "country" with a population of a few hundred. At best he's a cheer leader for one particular superstition. Why, really, does anyone care what he says?
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