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| So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction... Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true! May Sci-Facts |
Science Page May 2008This month’s Science Page is going to be a little bit different. Instead of sticking to the facts, I am going to speculate for the future. I know I tend to be upbeat on this page...this is going to be bleak. Be warned... Food Wars This planet no longer supplies enough food to feed everyone upon it. This may seem amazing when the Australian government is harping upon the obesity epidemic. However, the sad fact is that half the world is on the brink of starvation and malnutrition while we sit around eating too much and using too many resources. Now, ask yourself this. If you were watching your children starve, and right next door were a people eating themselves sick, what would you do? Wouldn’t you be tempted to pick up a gun and take a share of their food? I am a pacifist, but I’d fight to feed my children. In the future, and not that too distant a future, there will be food wars. The oceans are being depleted at an ever increasing rate. We keep building over the top of our arable land; Australia is one of the worst offenders here. We are running out of fossil fuels, and now need edible crops to create fuel for our cars. What land we do farm we then ruin by reducing its fertility, by the toxins in pollution falling as acid, with salt, with erosion. Last month, America had to start rationing rice... Fuel Wars It has been observed that if Kuwait had grown cabbages rather than produced oil, few people would have cared when it was invaded. We have been fighting fuel wars for years. Everyone will be noticing the sudden rapid rise in fuel prices. This is due to basic economics, where a lack of supply to meet the demand is creating an increase in prices. But it is much more than that. Petrol is a finite resource, and we are using it up at a huge rate of knots. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Twentieth Century was named the Age of Waste or the Era of Greed. There has to come a time when falling supplies meet rising rates. One day, there won’t be any left. We will be fighting savage fuel wars before then. Of course, we will be using ethanol or grain-based fuels by then. However, this means converting food resources into fuel resource – see food wars again. Air Wars Environmentalists have been fighting for fresh air since the Sixties. However, they no longer are battling alone, as Mother Earth has started to fight back with Global Warming. Human beings are very good at ignoring a problem and hoping it will go away. Unfortunately, sometimes the problem just keeps growing until it is too big to ignore.
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| *The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Green So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science? Well, I really am a scientist. I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Queensland, in Zoology. And, at the moment, I am working in a Pathology laboratory. I have always been intensely curious about every aspect of our universe, from the teeny tiny workings of the gene right up to the mind-bending forces that are twisting and knotting inside a blackhole. So, now I am sharing a brain stuffed full of trivia...and hopefully entertaining people at the same time. As well, I write Fantasy stories and novels. One day, I hope to have a book published, but don't hold your breath. Reading is my other major love, and my favourite authors are Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, though I could list hundreds of others. If I had one wish, I ask for more time to write! Read previous Sci-Facts: Artificial Artefacts Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds! |
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