The Digital Biome: Re-engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century
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Exponential technologies offer the promise not only of changing the human condition, but of radically altering the face of the planet on which we dwell. Within the next 20 years we will have sequenced the genome of every known species on the earth and tremendously advanced our understanding of how to utilize those genes and reprogram those organisms to alter the biosphere. Biosphere engineering will play a major role in overcoming current environmental and resource challenges, including finite reserves of fossil fuels and looming changes to the earth’s climate. That is just the beginning. An understanding of the complete biome genome will bring tremendous agility in combating future infectious disease outbreaks, in creating new sensors and manufacturing capabilities, and in revolutionizing food. Biosphere engineering and its underlying technologies will allow us to dramatically raise the population carrying capacity of the planet to tens of billions of individuals at least. With effective technology to sculpt the planetary biome, the limits of the number of humans that can live on the planet, and the quality of life of each, at tremendously higher than they appear to be today. This talk will explore some of the lower bounds of what's possible with control of the biome, and what we need to do to survive and overcome our challenges to get there.
Transcript of The Digital Biome: Re-engineering Life on Earth to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Century
- 1. The Digital Biome
Re-engineering the Ecosystem to Survive and Thrive in the 21s Century
Ramez Naam@ramez
2. Welcome to the Anthropocene
3. 4. Global problems, global risks
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. Ocean
Acidification
17. 18. 19. CATCH SOARING
20. Depleted Fisheries
21. Fish Tons Per Unit Effort
22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. Annual Rice Yields in China.Source:
10.1146/annurev-arplant-042809-112206
30. 31. Species Loss
32. 33. 34. Peak Oil: Projections
35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. Pathogens and Antibiotic
Resistance?(At M. Vassars Request)
43. 44. Biology as Info Tech
45. 46. 47. 48. 49. Goal:100,000 Genomes by 2020
50. 2020: $10 Human Genome
51. 52. 53. 54. 55. Knowing is Half the Battle
56. The Other Half is Doing
57. If the Genome is Digital
58. Can We Edit It?
59. 60. 61. Tools from biology
62. 63. 64. When you think of all the things that are made from oil
and the chemical industry and the fuel industries if in the future
we could find cells to replace most if not all of these processes,
the ideal way would be to do it by direct design.
-- Craig Venter
65. Algae Based Biofuels
66. 67. 68. 69. Tobacco Mosaic Virus
70. 71. 72. GM Eucalyptus Trees
73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 5 Days
84. The fundamental limits
85. 86. 87. Fresh Water
88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 13%
94. Increasing Photosynthetic Efficiency for Greater Yield
Xin-GuangZhu, Stephen P. Long, and Donald R. Ort, Annual Review of
Plant Biology
Timeline of boosting photosynthetic efficiency.Source:
10.1146/annurev-arplant-042809-112206
95. 96. Winning the Race
97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. US Energy Spending: One Trillion
Dollars
You Are Here
104. 105. 106. 107. Supply
Price
Demand
Behavior
108. 109. Garbage Data
110. Perceived Infinite Supply of:
111. Atmospheric CO2 Absorption
112. Ocean CO2 Absorption
113. Ocean Fish (at any given time)
114. Fresh Water Aquifers
115. Garbage Model:Distortions
116. 117. Clean Up Our Inputs
118. Clean Up Our Model
119. Price or Regulate Commons
120. Remove Distortions
121. Invest in R&D
122. Incentivize Conservation
123. Incentivize Efficiency
124. Incentivize Innovation
125. Maximize Odds of Success
126. Minimize Odds of Catastrophe
127. 128. 129. Ramez Naam@ramez
