Before this topic gets derailed by the politics that will inevitably accompany a suggestion of getting people to farm their own food (by force or incentive) or changing the standard of private property that is the basis of a global economy even in China. I would like to offer more incremental steps of significant impact; how about we change the way we cook food?

Second, remember that cities are growing everywhere. More people now live in cities than rural areas or on farms on the Earth and this is true in Africa and Asia, not just the Americas and Europe. If the cities are forcible deconstructed there will not only be chaos but rampant destruction of the environment for a considerable period before stability can return. This might occur anyway if there are sustained disruptions of the food supply that the urban metropoli depend on. There is another area that must be better developed and we have mentioned this already; the sea.

A considerable amount of land is now available on coastal shelves not far from land and also these areas are currently being desertified (ironically since they are underwater) by the impact of human behavior. These areas could and should be better developed to act as food producing regions of new dietary foodstuffs generated by underwater farming, These are not only farm raised fish and crustaceans but kelp and other marine plants that are adapted to mass production technology. These even include healthy algae that can be used in making synthetic meats and other products when combined with land based agriculture.

Actually this is a big step but it begins slowly and incrementally in order to achieve sizable results. We need to both defend the maritime environment and recognize the opportunity we have because the area available is even greater than that available on land. In order to protect the environment on the land we must develop the sea for habitat and agriculture but also to end the wanton pollution and protect its natural environment as well.

Helping to make the sea inhabitable by humanity makes us all the more witness to the destruction and also puts humanity in a position to intervene constructively along with the incentive and means to do so. It buys us some time to make the generational shifts and resolve the cultural distractions that impede our ability to become a truly civilized species.

Now for the small step; cooking.

I have been thinking that we could save a considerable amount of energy and cost if we changed our cookware. I was looking at how much energy is lost when cooking and in fact it's considerable. It is not difficult to design a new type of cookware that utilizes modern ceramics with a bi-metal copper clad cast iron base that insulates the walls and cover to retain a greater amount of heat inside the cooking chamber. This would mean the ability to cook with far less energy. This could even mean a more effective way of using sunlight for daytime cooking or other heat sources. This cookware would require an adaptive sponsor capable of developing advantages from its differences of method but it could be mass produced cheaply, made reliable, durable and easily maintained.

It should be made from recycled materials and could be a great money maker for an emerging techno economy if the design were developed well first and then brought to them for competitive manufacture. There are other examples of this approach that could be made more common. For example fermentation.

The homemade manufacture of yogurt, tofu and even some cheeses (not to mention beer and wine) are all possible efficiently at home with table top processors that operate like automated bread-makers or smarter crock-pots. This does not have to be another Popeil product or one for just the rich but a way of getting people to begin to deal with changing their diet through personal control. If you want people to change how and what we eat there must also be alternatives and an time for the learning curve to take place. People can't eat polemics and the resistance to change is not simple a massive global marketing machine it is the convenience an demands of modern life that encourage a dependence on processed foods.

These are just two examples of a different way of looking at the problem from the more traditional debate over economic theory, private property, agricultural technology and cultural inertia. Seek alternatives that are able to be instituted without significant conflict but as means of competitive advantage. Also these are examples of a way to get beyond the classic left/right or techno/naturalist clash.

Please try and come up with some more of your own ideas that offer real alternatives rather than just a repetition of past paradigms that are no longer workable without a post apocalyptic scenario. I think we should be seeking ideas that either prevent such a turn of events or at least minimizes the catastrophic impact that has all too tragically been the classic incentive for real changes, those paradigms shifts that brought opportunity for golden ages or just as commonly (if not more often) the dark ages that we seen to go out of our way to forget when studying history .