Newfie wrote:Not just food, heat too, and all the stuff petrochemicals make, like clothing.
DesuMaiden wrote:Newfie wrote:Not just food, heat too, and all the stuff petrochemicals make, like clothing.
When fossil fuels become inaccessible (due to scarcity and high price), we would have to resort to cutting down and burning wood for heat. I wonder how fast all of the trees in North America will be gone when people start burning wood as their primary fuel. What will we do when we burned all of our wood? There would be little coal left. During the industrial revolution, people turned from wood to coal because they depleted most of their forests for fire wood. We would have nothing to turn to but coal, but coal would be depleted pretty soon too. Without coal, only wood would be our only option for heating.
careinke wrote:DesuMaiden wrote:Newfie wrote:Not just food, heat too, and all the stuff petrochemicals make, like clothing.
When fossil fuels become inaccessible (due to scarcity and high price), we would have to resort to cutting down and burning wood for heat. I wonder how fast all of the trees in North America will be gone when people start burning wood as their primary fuel. What will we do when we burned all of our wood? There would be little coal left. During the industrial revolution, people turned from wood to coal because they depleted most of their forests for fire wood. We would have nothing to turn to but coal, but coal would be depleted pretty soon too. Without coal, only wood would be our only option for heating.
I could pull ten cord of wood a year off our 20 acres of forest with no management at all. Heck, I could pull that off without even chopping down a tree, dead fall alone would take care of it. With a little effort designing, and using coppicing and pollarding techniques, I could probably pull 50 cord off, and it would not even require a chainsaw, lopers would work. Of course I would be using rocket stoves and other highly efficient designs so I would really only require about two cords. I could also produce biochar, and the whole system would be carbon negative.
Knowledge is power.
Forests cover some 3.9 billion hectares (or 9.6 billion acres) which is approximately 30% of the World's land surface.
Newfie wrote:Yup, probably well below one billion because we will likely make the whole world look like Haiti in the process and it will take a long, long time to recover the topsoil.
Newfie wrote:Our worst nightmare.
DesuMaiden wrote:Newfie wrote:Our worst nightmare.
Overshoot is always followed by a die off. There is no case where any population grows exponentially without a collapse afterwards.
vtsnowedin wrote: Your numbers are bogus. Average forest in the middle latitudes can only support one cord per acre per year sustainably.
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