Spring Break
Space and sustainability: scarcity makes exploration necessary
Scott Conover
Issue date: 3/9/09 Section: Forum
For humanity to thrive in the long term, we must engage in space exploration and eventual settlement. Although environmental sustainability - often just called sustainability in the mainstream - is a beautiful dream, it is not truly feasible in the long term by human action or scientific measure.
As I mentioned in my column "Space and sustainability: realizing the possibilities" in the March 3 issue of The Daily Barometer, humans would have difficulty adjusting to a sustainable lifestyle in the long run, but there are also problems with the basic concept of sustainability. The most important issues are those of scarce resources and entropy - since even if humanity were to cut their use of resources, it may not matter in the long run.
According to dictionary.com, entropy may be defined as "the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity." This means that any resource consumed has portions that cannot be recovered.
This can occur to a variety of degrees, from a minor loss of energy to a complete and almost explosive use of a resource - but when a resource is completely consumed, only heat and dust truly remain. To understand this better, the following Web site contains very solid examples of entropy in our environment: http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA3/MAIN/ENTROPY/PAGE1.HTM.
So, in an environment with limited resources, eventually all of the resources in that environment will be consumed, leaving the inhabitants with nothing.
Entropy is very important in an environment with limited resources; according to dictionary.com, scarcity is defined as "the basic economic problem which arises from people having unlimited wants while there are and always will be limited resources." In any society where resources are scarce, choices have to be made about which resources are the most important or the most effective to implement. In relation to these issues, a discussion of scarcity and food in the world can be found on the following Web site: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10627.
As I mentioned in my column "Space and sustainability: realizing the possibilities" in the March 3 issue of The Daily Barometer, humans would have difficulty adjusting to a sustainable lifestyle in the long run, but there are also problems with the basic concept of sustainability. The most important issues are those of scarce resources and entropy - since even if humanity were to cut their use of resources, it may not matter in the long run.
According to dictionary.com, entropy may be defined as "the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity." This means that any resource consumed has portions that cannot be recovered.
This can occur to a variety of degrees, from a minor loss of energy to a complete and almost explosive use of a resource - but when a resource is completely consumed, only heat and dust truly remain. To understand this better, the following Web site contains very solid examples of entropy in our environment: http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCESoft/CCA/CCA3/MAIN/ENTROPY/PAGE1.HTM.
So, in an environment with limited resources, eventually all of the resources in that environment will be consumed, leaving the inhabitants with nothing.
Entropy is very important in an environment with limited resources; according to dictionary.com, scarcity is defined as "the basic economic problem which arises from people having unlimited wants while there are and always will be limited resources." In any society where resources are scarce, choices have to be made about which resources are the most important or the most effective to implement. In relation to these issues, a discussion of scarcity and food in the world can be found on the following Web site: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10627.
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