Wednesday Science Limerick: Resources are running out

Fresh Water’s a vital resource

So you take all you’re needing, of course.

So your neighbour has none

So he takes up his gun

And the shortfall is resolved by force.

An Opinion Article in the New Scientist by Petros Sekeris starts with the paragraph

THERE is a growing feeling that resources vital to sustain human life, such as fresh water, land and fossil fuels, are being used too fast to ensure our long-term presence on the planet. It seems obvious that nations should cooperate on this problem, and yet successful cross-border solutions and agreements are hard to find. Why don't we act for the common good more often?

The  problem of water shortages due to over-exploitation are well known  - just Google "water shortages" to fing examples from all over the world. There are of course other shortages - food is an obvious one which will be exacerbated by climate changes - which could also reduce the effective living space due to sea level rises - or increased temperatures in an around some dessert areas.

 

Some raw materials have very uneven distribution around the world - with it being high on the list, but some rare materials, essential in some modern electrical devices, are in short supply and only available in a small number of countries.

 

Petros has been using gaming models to explore what happens when two societies both want a scarce resource, using model which can involve violence. This model suggests that as supplies start to become short the "safe" solution - that both sides work together to optimise the resource - is unlikely to happen. Hoarding what you can grab is a more likely strategy - ending up in violence.

Wednesday Science Limerick: The Speed of Light

If you measure the speed of the light

From a source, whether feeble or bright,

Whether photon or wave,

Out in space, in a cave,

It’s the same, be it morning or night.

However you measure it, the speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second. It doesn’t make any difference if you think of light as a string of particles called photons, or as a wave.

Limericks & An Interruption to Normal Services

The dove saw the hawk as a threat

But its plans to escape were upset

When a window it hit

So I wrote this obit

And the hawk ate a feathered bagette

This morning I was interrupted by a large thump on our sitting room window, and I realized at once that a bird must have flown into it at speed. However I wasn't the first to get to the Collared Dove ...which had almost certainly flown into the window trying to escape from the Sparrow Hawk!

However this is a good opportunity to explain why I missed this week's Wednesday Limerick and why posts of all kinds may be a bit erratic at least until Christmas.

I am not expecting to go as dramatically as the collared dove but my wife and I have reached an age where parts are beginning to wear out and we need to think about our future living requirements. These will almost certainly include a ground floor bedroom with en-suite facilities. We prefer to remain in the small town where we have lived for the last 50 years and having looked at property availability the most sensible option would be to convert our integral garage to provide the extra space we need. However the garage is currently full almost to the roof with junk accumulated over the years - so we have set ourselves the target of downsizing the clutter ...