Thanks Pat.
Whole numbers make more sense, relevant and more understandable as you
describe.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: U.S. Metric Association
Cc: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 9:53 PM
Subject: [USMA:42116] RE: BBC web site keeps it metric
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 helped
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