The world is one big-assed garden now; the main impediment to agriculture overall is the price of petroleum fuels.
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the primary impediment to turning the deserts green is the price of electricity.
I think that collapsing both electricity and petroleum fuel costs is being targeted over the next 15 years.
In any case, that’s what has to happen in order for there to be a successful 21st century—something that everyone gets.
Bill Gates talked about the necessity of collapsing electricity costs to at least 1/4 current cheapest coal/gas electrical generation costs back at at Ted conference back in 2010—because the the consequence of not doing so would cause terrible problems. (He said it would be impossible to do long term thinking if energy costs were not reduced.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I
The primary impediment to turning the deserts green is political. Electricity has nothing to do with it. TEDS is just another leftist rant forum, so it figures that “Anopheles” Bill Gates would rant there.