[moobradidi]

Expect designer bacteria within a decade that can convert ANYTHING to usable hydrocarbons. Tar sands will not be a problem.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie ... tic_genome

Why am i so confident? Because technology revolutions like this have
spectacular innovation in their early phase e.g. wright brothers to flying the
atlantic in 20 years, first fission reaction to first reactor within a decade.

Hang on to your hats.

No doubt doomers will opine the usual:

Too little too late, infrastructure may need changing, where do we get the raw materials, environmental byproducts etc.

The world ain't perfect, never was and never will be.

But the odds are very high that we will use the most powerful
force on earth- life itself (which draws all its energy from the sun)-
to do the work for us.

It will be a crowded and not very pleasant plant- perhaps- but
we will survive.

So yeah, business as usual for quite a while to come.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'A')re you ever clueless.

[americandream]

Synthesised DNA. Interesting. The potential is endless if the technology works. Who knows, maybe this might just work..fingers crossed.

Time will tell.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'S')ynthesised DNA. Interesting. The potential is endless if the technology works. Who knows, maybe this might just work..fingers crossed.

Time will tell.

[SheikYarbhouti]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'I')t will be a crowded and not very pleasant plant- perhaps- but
we will survive.

So yeah, business as usual for quite a while to come.

[MD]

I certainly hope they don't screw up along the way.

On the other hand; at the end of that road I see sterile landscapes and dead seas with mile-upon-mile of tank farms growing food, releasing oxygen, and converting energy.

Cyborg planet here we come! Yummy!

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', '
')
No doubt doomers will opine the usual:

Too little too late, infrastructure may need changing, where do we get the raw materials, environmental byproducts etc.

The world ain't perfect, never was and never will be.

[like_the_dinosaurs]

thankyou so much for this revelation, i was completlely wrong about peak oil. This new system sounds great, just yank out every single cubic metre of earth on the planet and feed it into a machine. Hell the great barrier reef has xxxx billion barrels which should keep capatilism going for another xxxx years.

Take this #%&# elsewhere please.

[PeakOiler]

So this is the world that people can look forward to if this technology is implemented and successful (which I doubt), a planet that is wall-to-wall people like in that old Star Trek episode The Mark of Gideon :



Glad I won't be around.

[moobradidi]

Well there seems to be an air of scepticism here.

But we have to face facts. The future will not be based on your
aesthetic preferences but on what will be done to ensure survival.

Personally i'd prefer this new scenario to dentistry without drugs,
childbirth in a tent, 1920s medicine.

Debate on this board is really about values:

utopians wanting a pristine world dominated by the beauty of nature,
pragmatists like myself recognising that nature is often very ugly.
And so are people, but we generally choose ourselves over nature
if it's a question of survival.

I would not wish death from stomach cancer on anyone, let alone
in a world without modern pain relief.

If you think smog filled cities are horrific, try life pre polio vaccine,
smallpox and the rest. Try life expectancy dropped by 30 years.
Try counting the number of conditions treatable in the last
50 years and losing the diagnostic technology behind it.

And as for where the resources come from to fuel the new microbes.. well try the refuse mountains that are manila and
mexico city. Try acid lakes, toxic waste dumps, sewage plants,
exhaust stacks, effluent pipes and the very air breathed in
cities. Try tar sands with more energy in them than the whole
middle east.

As for its impossibility/feasibility. Consider that it took less than
half the time predicted to map the human genome. I now know several people conceived in a test tube (horrific horrific),
stem cell research is a freight train.

People this will come. There is no stopping it and although there
are certainly risks, we really have no choice and the bulk of the
population will embrace it if the choices are as stark as people
here claim.

No-one stopped the steam engine and it changed the world.

Soon we will design genetic engines that will change
everything.

Like it or hate it, its-a-coming brother.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PeakOiler', 'S')o this is the world that people can look forward to if this technology is implemented and successful (which I doubt), a planet that is wall-to-wall people like in that old Star Trek episode The Mark of Gideon :



Glad I won't be around.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('like_the_dinosaurs', 't')hankyou so much for this revelation, i was completlely wrong about peak oil. This new system sounds great, just yank out every single cubic metre of earth on the planet and feed it into a machine. Hell the great barrier reef has xxxx billion barrels which should keep capatilism going for another xxxx years.

Take this #%&# elsewhere please.

[Heineken]

As long as the emphasis continues to be on eleventh-hour techno miracles that are intended to maintain or even expand the current destructive regime . . .

WE'RE DOOMED.

As long as we refuse to discuss rational population reduction, powering down, localizing, restoring natural systems, and making personal sacrifices . . .

WE'RE DOOMED.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', '
')
No doubt doomers will opine the usual:

Too little too late, infrastructure may need changing, where do we get the raw materials, environmental byproducts etc.

The world ain't perfect, never was and never will be.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'A')s long as the emphasis continues to be on eleventh-hour techno miracles that are intended to maintain or even expand the current destructive regime . . .

WE'RE DOOMED.

As long as we refuse to discuss rational population reduction, powering down, localizing, restoring natural systems, and making personal sacrifices . . .

WE'RE DOOMED.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SheikYarbhouti', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'I')t will be a crowded and not very pleasant plant- perhaps- but
we will survive.

So yeah, business as usual for quite a while to come.

[like_the_dinosaurs]

It's called sarcasim.

The simple truth is that you showed no sign of repect, ie peak is over. The fact that so many people have altered there lives in an attempt to either help the planet or themselves says to me the there is a fair bit of conviction in regards to this topic.

I know i am right, for the laws of the universe are on my side, and a powerful friend it is.

You cant get something for nothing, simple as that, so you telling us some microbe is going to power the worlds economoy well, you get the picture.


ps. maybe we could breed trillions of chickens for biomas feedstock and keep them alive by feeding them chicken eggs. lol

[Heineken]

So, Moo, don't you think your techno pipe dream would require unprecedented human collaboration on a global scale?

If we're going to save ourselves from ourselves, the means of our salvation are already at hand. We simply need to learn to do less with less. Not reinvent the wheel.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('like_the_dinosaurs', 'I')t's called sarcasim.

you mean sarcasm right?

The simple truth is that you showed no sign of repect, ie peak is over.

I thought this was about discussion/debate? When was it a place to "respect" ideas? Is there some shrine here i missed?

The fact that so many people have altered there lives in an attempt to either help the planet or themselves says to me the there is a fair bit of conviction in regards to this topic.

We all act based on our convictions. I'm not stopping anyone.
Equally people in a democracy deserve the free exchange of ideas.
If people have acted on their convictions then they should be
substantial and defendable or at least not so fragile that
an alternative view is so disconcerting.

I know i am right, for the laws of the universe are on my side, and a powerful friend it is.

Which law is that? My law is that life always survives and there are
a lot of microbes out there who could give us a helping hand!

You cant get something for nothing, simple as that, so you telling us some microbe is going to power the worlds economoy well, you get the picture.

No i said that they potentially provide an alternative source of
fuel and new materials. They potentially provide unheard of
efficiencies in this regard. Your phrase is pretty ambiguous.

ps. maybe we could breed trillions of chickens for biomas feedstock and keep them alive by feeding them chicken eggs.

We have only tapped the readily usable resources of this planet.
There are plenty left Last i heard trees only needed soil, air and
water to produce biomass and O2. I think we could do with some
trees that grow in over salinated soils. Bit that's only an opinion

lol