I had the opportunity to eat a Primanti"s sandwich last week, which got me thinking ... more on this in a moment.
For those of you who may have not heard of this before, Primanti Brothers is a chain of restaurants in Pittsburgh, who serve a rather unique sandwich that has attained iconic status in this city.
The history behind this sandwich is fun to read, though I have a hard envisioning somebody eating this sandwich with one hand, while driving a truck with the other ... it is simply (huge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primanti_Brothers).
We heard on the news a month ago, that Primanti's has been named one of the "manliest" sandwich restaurants in the nation - a rather dubious honor, but one which caused more than a few smiles.
In case you want proof, here is a link to a picture of me eating my Primanti's sandwich - snapped by my sister (https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150373631472512&set=at.66614997511.70714.820847511.820847511&type=1&theater).
Enough with the frivolity however. What triggered this blog post was a story I heard over the weekend, that global population would reach an estimated 7 billion people on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 and related news stories yesterday and this morning.
You may enjoy watching the video at the top of this story, which helps visualize the growth of the Earth's population over the last few thousand years (http://www.npr.org/2011/10/31/141816460/visualizing-how-a-population-grows-to-7-billion).
The question of how many more people can live on Earth, what some scientists call Earth's carrying capacity, is a very complex one, with many variables potentially coming into play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity). One way to simplify the equation, is to talk about food, water and energy.
The food part of the equation is how I started this blog post -- meat and animal-derived products require more land and resources than grain-based foods -- the thinking is that as more people around the world enter the middle class, they will want more meat and animal-derived products, which will strain global food production. Improvements in agriculture may be able to offset this increased demand (to a point).
The water part of the equation is one which seems to be more dramatic in some parts of the world than in others. It is fair to say however, that access to clean water for an increasing global population will be a huge problem to overcome in the years to come. Water supply and purification mechanisms, as well as improvements in infrastructure to deliver the clean water to the population with minimal losses (and to remove the dirty water), will be definite areas of attention.
Then there is energy. One news story mentioned that parts of the world which are more developed are currently enjoying "cheap energy" and that the developing world will also want access to the same amount of energy being consumed in the more developed countries. A finite oil and fossil fuel supply is only part of the problem here -- it is also worth considering the energy efficiency of whatever we use which consumes energy and also energy wasted due to carelessness.
One of the areas of my job I truly enjoy, is related to AEVs (Alternative Energy Vehicles) and all the lightweight and energy-efficient materials my company supplies which can decrease the weight of any vehicle while simultaneously increasing their energy-efficiency. If you are interested in finding out more about this, feel free to check-out our Facebook page -- and if you like what you see, kindly click on the "Like" button too (https://www.facebook.com/BayerMaterialScienceAEV). Thanks!
For those of you who may have not heard of this before, Primanti Brothers is a chain of restaurants in Pittsburgh, who serve a rather unique sandwich that has attained iconic status in this city.
The history behind this sandwich is fun to read, though I have a hard envisioning somebody eating this sandwich with one hand, while driving a truck with the other ... it is simply (huge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primanti_Brothers).
We heard on the news a month ago, that Primanti's has been named one of the "manliest" sandwich restaurants in the nation - a rather dubious honor, but one which caused more than a few smiles.
In case you want proof, here is a link to a picture of me eating my Primanti's sandwich - snapped by my sister (https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10150373631472512&set=at.66614997511.70714.820847511.820847511&type=1&theater).
Enough with the frivolity however. What triggered this blog post was a story I heard over the weekend, that global population would reach an estimated 7 billion people on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 and related news stories yesterday and this morning.
You may enjoy watching the video at the top of this story, which helps visualize the growth of the Earth's population over the last few thousand years (http://www.npr.org/2011/10/31/141816460/visualizing-how-a-population-grows-to-7-billion).
The question of how many more people can live on Earth, what some scientists call Earth's carrying capacity, is a very complex one, with many variables potentially coming into play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity). One way to simplify the equation, is to talk about food, water and energy.
The food part of the equation is how I started this blog post -- meat and animal-derived products require more land and resources than grain-based foods -- the thinking is that as more people around the world enter the middle class, they will want more meat and animal-derived products, which will strain global food production. Improvements in agriculture may be able to offset this increased demand (to a point).
The water part of the equation is one which seems to be more dramatic in some parts of the world than in others. It is fair to say however, that access to clean water for an increasing global population will be a huge problem to overcome in the years to come. Water supply and purification mechanisms, as well as improvements in infrastructure to deliver the clean water to the population with minimal losses (and to remove the dirty water), will be definite areas of attention.
Then there is energy. One news story mentioned that parts of the world which are more developed are currently enjoying "cheap energy" and that the developing world will also want access to the same amount of energy being consumed in the more developed countries. A finite oil and fossil fuel supply is only part of the problem here -- it is also worth considering the energy efficiency of whatever we use which consumes energy and also energy wasted due to carelessness.
One of the areas of my job I truly enjoy, is related to AEVs (Alternative Energy Vehicles) and all the lightweight and energy-efficient materials my company supplies which can decrease the weight of any vehicle while simultaneously increasing their energy-efficiency. If you are interested in finding out more about this, feel free to check-out our Facebook page -- and if you like what you see, kindly click on the "Like" button too (https://www.facebook.com/BayerMaterialScienceAEV). Thanks!
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