If we are doing our fair share by land mass it should be 500m by 2050.
I find it astonishing that people have an easier time believing we can colonise Mars than that we can colonise the centre of Australia.
I find it astonishing that people have an easier time believing we can colonise Mars than that we can colonise the centre of Australia.
The average person would rather live in a crammed Sydney apartment complex then live in the middle of the Simpson desert.
Mars is new. We really don't know what will happen. There are a group of people throughout history that have "chanced it" and gone to the new world out of the hope they can build something better. You will have the same rush on Mars.
Also, you drive through a lot of less arid farm land before you get anywhere near desert. Including past dying country towns (many below the Goyder Line). We could increase the density of rural properties (from large farms down to farmlets, etc) or do more to boost living in fading townships well before there was any reason to make the desert more habitable.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-m...
What makes Mars interesting is that it’s hard. Nobody is arguing that we should go to Mars because it is easy!
Help me understand your view because I simply cannot fathom how you must think to want 500M people in Australia.
Have you traveled? Do you want to live the way people live in overcrowded countries? Do you think there will be some trickle down economic effect for you? Do you place any value on the environment?
My point is that people assume we can turn Mars, an entire arid planet with no water, into a habitable place but that we can't turn deserts on earth into habitable, arable land.
The earth is finite. And it becomes undesirable and polluted long before we hit a hard population ceiling. I just do not understand people who would happily see the entire earth destroyed just so we can have a few more billion humans. we have too many already.
almost all high density places in the world are shitholes. Japan is an exception, but I don't have faith that Australia could be. Sydney is already seeing net loss of residents (excluding new migrants) because it is becoming overcrowded.