On 2008/12/02, at 3:42 PM, STANLEY DOORE wrote:
The use of square meters and square kilometers are preferable to
hectares since people can visualize square meters and square
kilometers and fractions thereof without having to compute a change
in units to hectares and vice versa.
Stan Doore
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [email protected]
> CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [USMA:42095] BBC web site keeps it metric
> Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:24:59 +0000
>
>
> I was pleasantly surprised to see the BBC News web site describe
the area of the Amazon rain forest being lost in square kilometers:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7756241.stm
Dear Stan and Ezra,
You emails reminded me of an article I recently read, called 'Peak
Soil', by David Montgomery, who is Professor of Geomorphology at the
University of Washington. Professor Montgomery wrote:
In contrast to the amount of arable land, which has varied widely
through time and across civilizations, the amount of land needed to
feed a person has systematically declined. Hunting and gathering
societies used from 20 to 100 hectares per person; our current use of
1.5 billion hectares of cultivated land to feed roughly 6 billion
people equates to about 0.25 hectares of cropland per person. And by
2050 the amount of available cropland is projected to drop to less
than 0.1 hectare per person. So, simply keeping up will require major
increases in crop yields.
I think that this idea of diminishing amounts of land available for
agriculture would have been clearer had this been written in whole
numbers. This paragraph would then read:
In contrast to the amount of arable land, which has varied widely
through time and across civilizations, the amount of land needed to
feed a person has systematically declined. Hunting and gathering
societies used from 200 000 to 1 000 000 square metres per person; our
current use of 1.5 billion hectares of cultivated land to feed roughly
6 billion people equates to about 2 500 square metres of cropland per
person. And by 2050 the amount of available cropland is projected to
drop to less than 1 000 square metres per person. So, simply keeping
up will require major increases in crop yields.
It seems to me that the use of whole numbers makes his concept of land
reduction and food production much clearer and makes it quicker to
grasp his ideas. I am aware that it does introduce the large numbers
200 000 and 1 000 000 but still I think that the contrast is still
better. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/WholeNumberRule.pdf
for some more thoughts on whole numbers in metrication programs.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
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