Powering a Sustainable Future
When Blaxland, Wentworth & Lawson forged a path through the Blue Mountains, they unlocked the potential this vast landscape has to offer. (The Blue Mountain pioneers, lithograph by M. Emile Ulm, Sydney Mail, 1880)
And it’s not just us. The world is going through a trend where the advent of modern mechanical agricultural equipment is emptying the countryside’s and enlarging cities. Those farm workers who aren’t I.T. experts are becoming cannon fodder for the factories. 50% of the world’s population now live in cities and tens of thousands join that throng every day. Imagine a world population of 7.5 billion people on the planet, 4 billion are living in congested cities competing for power, water, even oxygen.
Urban Growth Is Reality Every time a world bank gives 100 John Deere tractors to a previously primitive agricultural Third World country we put hundreds of men and women out of work. Where else do they have to go but the cities. Once there, they require food and fibre but are unable to provide it themselves. It still has to come from farms somewhere on the planet. The work they must do must be peripheral to those primary functions that keep the human race alive. A man living in a cupboard-sized room in Hong Kong produces no food or fibre but still has to eat and be clothed.
Australia’s Part in this Steady but Inevitable Global Transformation There may be only 25 million of us but we have a major role. With $60 billion worth of agricultural production each year, even with gluttonous appetites we can only consume around $20 billion of it.
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Waste + Water Management Australia | Oct/Nov 2018
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