Some Reality Facts
- Thread starter Roen Soul
- Start date
This is incorrect. The correct answer is "seven or eight" (http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/how-many-trees-are-needed-provide-enough-oxygen-one-person)
Also: Trees are not your most efficient way to make oxygen. phytoplankton is a better choice. Or we could just do it synthetically.
There's no reason for "under a dome", no such thing has been "tested in labrotories", there's no need for a single building (as opposed to multiple buildings) for oxygen generation.
OP still at it, eh?Ok, moving away from human devices and artificial habitats, the notion that trees are somehow essential to human life runs counter to our entire existence on the planet.
Everywhere people went they killed trees- this is because, as I mentioned before, trees are big, their roots are extensive and they are very thirsty. You can grow much more useful stuff than a stand of inedible trees with just a little effort. There are many ways to kill a tree- just cutting a circle through the outer ring will do, this was the preferred method for prehistoric Britons. Burning works- although the Aboriginal people of Australia went a bit overboard there. Burning small areas, clearing the roots using large animals- elephants, ox, horses, whatever you have available- and planting your crop in the rich, damp soil has allowed human agriculture to flourish for tens of thousands of years. The earliest site so far discovered is 23,000 years old, but there may be still older sites to be discovered. Some may have been lost forever- the sea level has risen by 120 metres over the last 20,000 years. The earliest farms may be tens of metres underwater today.
So why aren't we choking?
Well, mainly because virtually every green thing on the planet is better at producing oxygen and scrubbing CO2 than a tree. Most of the tree's bulk is in it's structure, the leaves are a small part of the organism as a whole. Compare that to algae, say, or phytoplankton or even grass or seaweed. The vast bulk of the organism is devoted to photosynthesis. A crop field is not only edible, but for much of it's life cycle it will do a much better job of maintaining our atmosphere than a copse of trees. The same is true of wetlands and even an equivalent area of shoreline.
Trees are beautiful and imposing, stagnant ponds and empty steppe are not. Naturally, we want to preserve the beautiful forests. There's nothing wrong with that, my family are planting more trees every year back home. Just be aware of the real benefit to your land- natural drainage, wind breaks, sustainable timber are all valid reasons for planting trees, as is doing it just because they look pretty. But planting them to generate oxygen is a really poor reason when everything else does it so much better.
So why the brouhaha about destroying rainforest?
Trees are great carbon sinks. The wood stores carbon. Ten pounds of wood can store the carbon released by a gallon of ethanol. Clearly that's not enough to justify using internal combustion engines- we really need an alternative! But the real danger is that when the rainforest is used for something else- burned, or made into cheap housing and furniture- the carbon will soon be released back into the atmosphere. Just check out how much woodchip is in the local municipal dump next time you're passing. No foul if the land is used for agriculture, but a real drama if it becomes urban sprawl. In the developing world that's pretty much exactly what's happening.
The answer isn't planting trees, though. Improving the livelihood, health and education of third world citizens removes much of the need for mass deforestation, forced by chronic overpopulation and the constant encroachment on local ecosystems that follows. It can be done, many developing nations have become wealthy and stable by investing in their people. But it's not easy to go against the vested interests of the wealthy and powerful both in the third world and in the West. Burning down a forest and allowing a vast slum to take it's place is ridiculously easy, providing education, birth control, primary health care and a fully developed infrastructure for an entire nation is insanely difficult.
We live in interesting times!
Ha! I knew I was close, though a tiny bit off (740 vs 720kg). Didn't bother referencing anything, though by the looks of how the thread devolved it was apparently needed. Still, I think I've won some internet points! What to spend them on...
Last edited:
The correct answers to 99.9% of anything when you can't immediately think of an answer is -
Kevin Bacon
or
Hookers and Booze
Ian Phillips
Volunteer Moderator
I think you got the order wrong there
Where do you think most the foods you eat now came from? Do you know what goes into fertilized fields?
recycling matter into different forms of matter /= eating poo and urine.
Uh huh? I know it's not properly modelled in the game, but who needs trees when he can mine water from ice rings and convert it to oxygen with the fire and radiation of a couple of suns we have in the galaxy?
Now steaks. That's a whole different thing. Steak supply is what limits population growth. Fish, too. Fish is even more important! Mhhmmm, fish! So juicy and fresh!
Now steaks. That's a whole different thing. Steak supply is what limits population growth. Fish, too. Fish is even more important! Mhhmmm, fish! So juicy and fresh!
So, is this a request for trees, for immersion purposes, or that the numbers of trees needed is far greater than the square meterage a station has? The ISS clearly has many trees with which astronauts can marvel and sit under (figuratively).
Soylent Green? Wait; that's addressing a food concern. My bad.
Soylent Green? Wait; that's addressing a food concern. My bad.
Last edited:
this is what happens when we tell kids with a GCSE to AS level understanding of physics that they are clever
with the ~1000 years between now and when this game takes place its seems shocking that you wouldn't just assume there was a better way of doing things, and maybe stop to consider that you might just be wrong in the first place
with the ~1000 years between now and when this game takes place its seems shocking that you wouldn't just assume there was a better way of doing things, and maybe stop to consider that you might just be wrong in the first place
Soylent Green for the win, it's made from people. As for the slaves I am doing my best but I can only ship 384 at a time
the problem with your assumption is that clearly technology has not progressed but regressed in some ways for ED 3301 fictional universe.
-we have space telescopes and scanning that have greater ability today than ED exploration tech 3301
-we have Amazon.com but apparently the concept or tech to look up prices in system A while in system B does not exist
-we don't have FTL drives but ED does - yet no Intersystem communication exists other than magical NPC emails that alert destination changes but somehow can't use same communications system to allow Intersystem banking, cashing bounties anywhere, etc
-radar, lidar, and sonar tech has apparently regressed or lost to where combat is 4-5 km limit vs crude 20th century tech much less 21st century ability.
basically, from what FD shows us, some things are incredibly advanced, some things are incredibly inferior tech 1000 years from now.
Your typical wild plant (tree) has an oxygen producing efficiency of 0.1 to 0.2%, a typical crop plant has an efficiency of 1-2%, so why on earth, or in space, would you plant trees when you can grow food and produce oxygen at the same time? The most efficient plant for producing oxygen is sugar cane at 7-8% so if you were going to grow plants to produce oxygen it's sugar cane. Algae us not necessarily a great deal more efficient than other plants, but there is a lot of it, the ocean is a 3d volume not flat surface, algae accounts for 20-30% of oxygen production worldwide. Most of a tree's energy is spent growing a trunk, not a very efficient way to make oxygen, but even so an estimated ten thousand leaves is sufficient, so leafy bushes rather than trees.
But as already said, it's a game, we mine icy rings for water, can't see a problem myself, plants are much more likely to be used to remove CO2 than make oxygen, oxygen is in relatively abundant supply. Trees and plants will be used for decorative value I expect.
If a tree falls in a Sidewinder, and no one hears it fall, did it make a sound?
Wait what? That's not going to end well?
Anyone who currently lives in SE England has drunk the same glass of water at least 6 times.
More internet facts?
But... I read it on the internet! It MUST be true??
Facts actually have the potential for fantastic science fiction stories. Much science fiction takes facts and extends them into the future by making predictions on them.
Last edited: