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The Forum > Article Comments > Food security - what security? > Comments

Food security - what security? : Comments

By John Le Mesurier, published 22/9/2010

How will a global population expected to reach 10 billion within the next 50 years be fed?

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They won’t be fed.

Forget the global warming nonsense and other excuses. The only solution is to seriously cut population NOW. Sending food, and money, to populations that are continuing to grow must stop. Let natural selection occur; the population will soon decline. Keep off TV footage of fly-covered, rib-showing children who should never have been born. There are too many tender hearts clamouring for more expensive but ineffectual foreign aid. ‘Aiding’ Third World countries merely encourages breeding.

For Australia, start protecting our land from purchase by foreign governments. Cease the nonsense of turning owners off huge tracts of farming and grazing land to establish national parks. The same applies to the fishing industry and marine parks. Stop telling farmers that they cannot clear land to produce more, just because of the fantasy that this will somehow control the climate.

Protection for Australian farmers and producers is also necessary. Globalisation has failed miserably; it doesn’t even help the poorer countries the lying global barons said it would.

Finally, stop voting for the wimpy politicians we have now. We can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Australian politicians who are prepared to do the right thing by Australia, and stand up to, or ignore completely, the would-be world rulers in Europe and the corrupt United Nations.

It is not Australia’s responsibility to ‘feed the world’. We should be growing and storing; exporting only surpluses, and not making a few people reach. We should also be spending more on defence (instead of mucking around in places like Afghanistan) to protect what we have, simply because we cannot help people without the sense to control their populations, but we should be able to defend and retain what we have if push comes to shove.
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 10:20:39 AM
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And now factor in the price of fuel.

Predictions of $200/bl (and increasing), in a few years time.

OK may be wrong on date but it will happen as we have used up all of our cheap oil and consuming three times what we are finding.

And what feeds our tractors or ships, for import/export?
Posted by PeterA, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 10:39:07 AM
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Paul Erlich in the late 60's warned that we were in danger of starving due to population pressures. We're still here. Yes, the world population is increasing but it has been since the world began. Does it automatically mean we will starve? I think not.

Food production has increase astronomically over the last 100 years for many reasons. It is not the problem. The problem is DISTRIBUTION. Australians and Americans throw away more food in a day than people in other countries have to eat in a week. Don't believe me? Have a look in any school or food court rubbish bin.

In countries run by military governments, the people are starving for two main reasons: Military action is destroying their farms and killing the males of military age; and, food which is sent to the country to aid the starving populace, ends up in the hands of the military and the favoured elite - not in the mouths of the people it was intended for.

America uses more fertiliser each year on its golf courses than is used in the entire third world for crops. Biotech companies are patenting seeds and introducing crop monocultures into less developed countries in the name of food security. US food security that is - but that is another topic for discussion.

Developed countries have a very low rate of population growth so if we wish to reduce world population growth let's help underdeveloped countries to develop.

Saying that population is the problem for food security is a red herring (if you'll pardon the food analogy). For every mouth that is born there is a brain and two hands. These can be, and have been used to achieve solutions to any problem. The real problem is government selfishness, and corporate greed especially by the biotech and agribusiness mega-corporations. Rather than talk about limiting world population (which reduces a human life to a mere number), we should be talking about limiting the size and power of corporations - and possibly governments!
Posted by Michael B, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 11:03:45 AM
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Did you ever stop and ask yourself seriously why we are still here, MichaelB?

We are here, and so are many 'Third-Worlders', because Norm Borlaug agreed with Paul Ehrlich, in that population growth was starting to outstrip food production. So, Norm being the practical man that is, decided to buy us all time, increase food production worldwide so that everyone could get their act together. He has since noted that while his 'Green Revolution' was a success, noone has gotten their act together on population. All the stats from the FAO on global food production per capita since the 1980's have pretty much plateaued or slightly decreased. Given the rate of population expansion at the present time, the rate of food production increase is not matching pace.

The problem is not just distribution. Food goes off, it needs to be consumed seasonally, some needs to be consumed almost immediately or it uses a lot of energy in terms of refrigeration and transport etc. For your 'distribution' solution to work, our current food distribution systems and energy usage would have to increase quite significantly. Yes, starving countries are affected by the politics, but that is a local effect.

You talk about not worrying about population, as if that's some sort of totalitarian numbers game. Yet your solutions would require large scale rearrangement of the political landscapes to accomodate these strucural distribution and rationing type systems, to avoid all that nasty wastage and allow population increase.

Having population policies and at least allowing people to regulate their own fertility and have easy access to contraception is the least totalitarian solution by comparison.

Think on this: centralised governments and non-democratic systems have never been able to avoid famines, in fact they tend to exacerabte them by not allowing the free and unrestricted movement of food by trade.
Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 11:42:08 AM
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You greatly exaggerate the problem!

The world can never really be overpopulated for very long-- the population of the human race at any given time is more or less at the correct loading for the food available for that time. The reason why is *very* simple, in fact it is so simple and so obvious that people can't see it! Basically there is a controlling feedback loop: if people don't get fed then people will die, people dying increases the amount of food per person for those whose are left alive. So people will die from starvation until there is enough food to support the remaining population. ie: the environment naturally controls the world's population. Simple, isn't it?

Ultimately, this means is that the population can *never* be more than 3-5 weeks out of whack with the amount of food available within a given area-- cause that is about the maximum of how long you can live without food. Now, considering that homo-sapiens has been around for 250-350 thousand years and 3-5 weeks is just a blip in comparison we can safely say that the world has never, is not, and will never be over populated!

The problem with the above argument, although technically correct, is that generally people don't like the idea of people starving to death on mass. It is anathema to them (me included). So others will (sometimes) try to reduce the amount of pain and suffering by diverting their own resources to aid people who are starving. When we in the west do this to people in developing nations some people make a big song and dance about how bad things are, that the system broken and the future state of the world is all doom and gloom--like this article did.

However, close inspection will show that things are not really all that bad. Whenever there has been starvation in the last hundred years it hasn't been because there is a *global* shortage of food. ... continued below......
Posted by thinkabit, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 11:59:35 AM
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NEWSFLASH

Relax, human population will not reach 10 billion by 2060. More like 3-4 billion is my private estimate.

Here's what happens.

When a species, any species, encounters favourable conditions populations expand. When conditions turn unfavourable population contracts for the simple reason that death rates exceed birthrates.

We humans are no different from any other species and will undergo the same process. When resources prove inadequate to support population levels our population will contract.

If you think the 20th Century was bloody welcome to the 21st.

MICHAEL B and others who think you can forecast anything, be it population levels or food production, simply by extrapolating current trends should remember the following doggerel attributed to Cairncross:

A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend?

Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?

The answer almost always is “YES!” We just don't know when.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:00:15 PM
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... continued from above....

It's been because there has been a disruption of food production/ delivery in the local region-- a common longer disruption on a months/years time frame is war and shorter term disruption on a weeks/months time frame is flooding.

Importantly, overall the world has never been anywhere near the state that people are dying because of a world-wide shortage of food. Furthermore and most importantly it is almost inconceivable that the world will ever suffer from a global shortage of food*! The reason why is because of two factors:

Firstly: All over the world the majority of people in a given society will *only* have kids if they or their society can forseealby support them at that time for the next few years. (Birth/child control has been practiced pretty much as long mankind has been around. In times of old, if things got tough they would just kill off the babies and even eat them in some cases, these days we prevent conception or cull them before they are born-- but non-the-less across the world population control has, is and always will be routinely performed in some form across *all* cultures). The important thing to not about this is that this form of control happens pretty much automatically-- adults generally will not have kids if they can't afford them. They make this decision without needing to be told.

Secondly: there is a another feedback loop acting on a longer timescale at play that controls the worlds population: specifically, people *naturally* die from old age.

So combining the fact that people naturally die with the fact that people only produce children if they can forseeably afford to raise them gives the result that the world's population can never be more than about 60 or so years (the average lifespan) out of whack with the amount of food available. ... continued below....
Posted by thinkabit, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:02:48 PM
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... continued from above....

The result of this is, is that there can only be a global shortage of food in there is some event, or a collection of events acting together, that cause a *global* reduction of food within a 60 year or so time frame. The article tries to make out that such a threat exists and is likely-- particularly it mentions climate change and human's diverting farming land to other uses. Both of these claims in the article are baseless.
The flaw in these claims about climate change is due to the fact that the major negative impacts on food production due to climate change (if climate change turns out to be real) will occur on a 50+ year time scale. For example, with respect to sea-rise the article itself mentions 2100-- way more than 50 years.
The flaw about with respect to diverting farming land to other uses is that farming land is only diverted when it is more profitable to use it for some other activity. However if food production was to drop (averaged over longer time scales of years) then food prices would rise and land for food production would become valuable preventing it being converted to other use. Infact modern technology allows us to convert borderline arable land into healthy productive land. Infact we can even convert desert into farm land- check out the Libyan Great Man-made river irrigation scheme!

The long and short of this response of mine is that contrary to the article you really don't need to worry about over-population. The population automatically controls itself naturally and there really is no need to worry about world-wide shortage of food for the reasons given in the article.

(*An example of a world event that could dramatically reduce food supply is an asteroid impact-- conceivable, but not likely)
Posted by thinkabit, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:04:44 PM
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There ya go, what an optimistic approach thinkabit!

Upshot: overpopulation cannot happen because people will die. Don't worry about it.

How reassuring.
Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:35:07 PM
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Bugsy wrote:

>>Upshot: overpopulation cannot happen because people will die>>

May be a distressing thought but that’s the way it is. See my post of Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:00:15 PM on this thread.

You then wrote:

>>Don't worry about it.>>

Well that’s no longer true. When a state with a powerful military finds itself running short of food things are bound to get nasty. When that state has nukes things could get REALLY nasty.
Posted by stevenlmeyer, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:43:03 PM
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Great article John, albeit depressing. Glad to see someone making the connections between population size, climate change, peak oil and food (in)security. We need action on a number of fronts: rapid population stabilisation and then reduction everywhere through voluntary family planning and education; stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions within five years and then 40 per cent reduction on 1990 levels by 2020 for all developed countries such as Australia; protocols to share the remaining oil equitably but ensuring supplies to farmers so that food can be produced and distributed; and investment in agricultural research such that new strains of crops can be developed that are resistant to higher temperatures and drought. I hope we can avert widespread famine in the coming years but it will take action - now.
Posted by popnperish, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 12:46:43 PM
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Bugsy: you miss the point I was trying to make. (Perhaps, I didn't do a good job of it in the article).

Basically, Yes I do say that "Upshot: overpopulation cannot happen because people will die. Don't worry about it."-- however I'm also saying something more.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that there are two ways you can die that are relevant to the population debate. One is from starvation, the other is old age. An event (or collection of events) can only cause starvation if people don't first die from old age. This is why people are *not* going to die on mass from starvation due to climate change, because climate change is such a long term event that the society will adjust to any negative impact it has on food production by simply not replacing those who die gracefully from old age.
The only time people have starved to death in large numbers in the last century was due events with sudden severe short term effects-- such as war. And these event have never been global, only ever local/regional.

Globally, we have *always* had enough food to feed the world's population!

With-respect-to farming land-- firstly, farm land lost so far is very minor-- take a look at google earth- plenty of it is still green and arable. secondly, the bit we lose to things like salintiy is on timescales over decades so the above argument about long time scales applies, thirdly we can actually we use modern technology and farming practices to increase food production and improve soil health- such as irrigation, breeding, salinity reduction strategies etc.
Posted by thinkabit, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 1:15:25 PM
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What a collecdtion of discredited scare stories in both the article and the posts.. and even a defence of Paul Ehrlich! Bwwwwhahahahahahah!
I liked the bit about Ehrlich's warmings sparking a response that made a difference, although Bugsy was probably quoting some other deluded writer.
Ehrlich was hopelessly wrong in almost all his forecasts, not just about a food crisis. The interplay between food prices, technology and cultivation long pre-dates Ehrlich.
In any case, the author of teh article is perhaps not fully aware of some of the modern trends in agriculture - how land in the US and Australia is graudally shifting back towards forest use - but then he also seesm to have trouble with the basic numbers. The ABS source for population growth in Australia he cites gives top range estimate of 42.5 million by 2056. the detailed projection can be downloaded from the ABS sire. The projection for 2060 is about 44-45 million, not the 55-62 million he cites.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 2:10:34 PM
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With all these posts about letting them starve, I do not think you have seen the end result of a mice plague. Perhaps your experience in life has been a well stocked supermarket and full wallet.
I would like to bring up the biofuel issue in the context of world food security.
Developed countries can outbid the poor countries for biofuel feedstock which involves grain, arable land, water and so on. We are outbidding them with the help of Government subsidies so it is not even market forces operating.
So I pose the question, are you prepared to activly and purposfully starve the world population back to levels where your own standard of living is maintained. That is are you prepared for the consequences of converting food to fuel.
Bear in mind that the proportion of food producing resources currently diverted to subsidises and mandated biofuels could be approaching 10 percent, with no limit in sight.
World food harvests are variable whereas biofuel demand is fixed with biofuel plants, investors, bowsers all demanding continuous feedstock supply. So, even at this early stage of development of the biofuel industry, in times of poor harvests you really will see the cull of the world's poorest. Will you really just turn off the TV.?
Posted by Goeff, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 2:12:08 PM
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"Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction effectively and humanely. He is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. The result is that the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of increase in food production in some areas.

There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind."

-Norm Borlaug 1970 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

And what has changed?
Yes, Borlaug agreed with Ehrlich, but started earlier. I accept that the way I wrote that paragraph, it may have seemed chronologically causative, which it wasn't. Having a pathological compulsion to ridicule Ehrlich isn't healthy Mark.

Yes, Ehrlich was wrong on many fronts, especially because he never factors in unknown future technological advancements. He does this for a very good reason.
Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 4:45:39 PM
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Oh yes, and while we're at it, in fact there has been substantial progress in combating hunger and reducing pverty in recent decades - so substantial that even the UN agencies have almost acknowledged it. This has nothing to do with food supply but everything to do with both China and India opening up their economies, and dumping ideology. Economists argue about the degree of progress but no-one outside lobby groups questions that there has been progress. There has even been progress in Africa.
Where mass hunger occurs it is noticeably due to a major distrubance, such as a civil war, rather than any shortage of food as such.

Bugsy - I won't disagree with your defence. But there is nothing wrong in treating Ehrlich as a joke, albeit a joke from which we can learn what not to do in forecasting.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 5:19:11 PM
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Does anybody think we are going in the right direction? Is it okay that a billion people don't have clean drinking water and over a billion don't have a toilet? Is it okay that millions of people die of starvation each year? Will the brilliant new technologies (if they can be found) be used by the 800 million people who can't read or write? What are the massive benefits of increasing human population?

Is it good that in the process of seeing how many people we can cram on to our planet that many other species die out? Wouldn't it be easier to feed 8 billion people than 9 billion people? Our species has to be sustainable some day. What is the point of wearing out the ecosystems and using up all the easy resources before we have figured out how to be sustainable?
Posted by ericc, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 6:55:04 PM
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Ehrlich might be a joke to you Mark, but he has sold more books than certain other authors ever will.

He is also a well-published ecologist, who has studied local extinction phenomena in biological systems. On this score, he is worth listening to.

I'd have to agree though, he is a great lesson on what not to do when forecasting, i.e. one shouldn't make predictions, especially about the future, at least not in public.

Because then, any old armchair economist and journalist can have a good laugh and say how you were wrong.

Maybe you will know how it feels in a couple of years. Who knows?
Posted by Bugsy, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 8:42:09 PM
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How right you are Bugsy, how very right about making whacko predictions.

So far we've had global warming making the seas rise which will swamp Pacific Islanders or indeed anyone living within cooee of the coast, which is good news for life savers but bad news for real estate agents.

Apparently the polar caps are melting as is the Himalayan ice. We're running out of arable land, we're running out of food and technology won't help us. Fish stocks and sulphate fertilisers have gone to buggery and the polar bears are becoming extinct and we're out of oil and people are unearthing Malthuse.

The Muslim are plotting against the white Christian races and the only way to save our economy is whack up massive tariff walls and cut all immigration, slash the baby bonus and get rid of international students.

Then the anti-pops will take over and force us to turn the clocks back to Year Zero while they live in a cave deep under Camp David with 500 beautiful women genetically chosen by the Adelaide Uni Genetics Department. Oh yeah, there will be no fighting in the war room.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 9:41:16 PM
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....animals will be raised and SLAUGHTERD!.....for food.

ahem.

Bugsy is so right, but I feel his no-downside cheerfulness misses an obvious point.

The starving millions will not simply sit calmly, acknowledging their fate and accepting their rightful due.

They will violently attempt to acquire what they need from those few provident souls who keep a few oats in the cupboard.

Could be an exciting few weeks, and be sure to catch the highlights in HD.

Rusty
Posted by Rusty Catheter, Thursday, 23 September 2010 12:27:43 AM
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John, an excellent article. Food security in Australia needs to be protected. It is time that the governments of this country introduced a sensible protection of food producing regions. We on the Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs of Australia have been figthing to the last five years to protect these areas. Both areas are food bowls of national importance. As a farmer on the Liverpool Plains I well aware of the productivity of this region - one of the few areas in Australia that produces two crops a year with yields of 40% above the national average. It is also predicted that our region will be least impacted upon by climate change. And yet this government is continuing to allow exploration for coal seam gas and coal mining - ultimately the cumulative effects of coal and gas extraction will destroy this region.
Posted by nomines, Thursday, 23 September 2010 6:19:32 AM
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Thinkabit,
I wonder if the habitants of Easter Island, The Anasazi, The Mayans and eventually the World would have thought of your theory.
It all sounds a bit Australian to me.
“She’ll be right”, does not always work.
Posted by sarnian, Thursday, 23 September 2010 11:13:04 AM
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Agriculture has ceased to be a priority area for governments, universities and research. In Australia all Departments of Agriculture are being reduced to a minimal policy and regulation role – research capacity atrophying as researchers leave and aren’t replaced and funding for research cut. Agricultural faculties are dwindling, for example Sydney University’s Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources is largely a back door to Science and Economics for those who do not have a UAI suitable for entry into those faculties.

Australia seems to believe markets solve all problems – markets are about maximising profits for those with power in the market, not meet needs.

There is public policy interest in solving the issues we face. The emergence of strong public commitments to Agriculture the older generation experienced was driven by shortages generated by global conflict, WWII. Until such shortages are felt no action will be taken.
Posted by Paul @ Bathurst, Thursday, 23 September 2010 11:57:00 AM
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sarnian: Thanks for bringing up Easter Island, I knew someone would. When people talk about population Easter Island almost always gets a mention.

The real facts are that the people on Easter Island didn't die en masse* from environmental degradation. They were wiped out due to foreign disease carried in by the Europeans and were also removed in large numbers as slaves. The idea that they died from starvation caused by environmental degradation is a common myth that has been thoroughly debunked. However, greenies and population controllers keep perpetuating this fallacy for there own advantage. (If you don't believe me check out the wikipedia page on Easter Island.)

By-the-way, here's a simple question for you:

How many people are *currently* living on Easter Island?

The answer is in the thousands. This sizable population of current residents have a very healthy life with a higher standard of living than at any other time in the island's history even though the island is commonly help up as an example of the environmental catastrophy that is looming in our impending future.
The people on Easter Island are doing just fine even though there are now almost 7 billion people on the planet which is *billions* more than when Easter Island's population collapsed in the 1800's!

The world's current total global food production can easily cover your's, mine, the Easter Islander's and everybody else's needs.

The reason why people are currently starving in the world is due to local/regional disruptions to the food supply (such as flood or politics)-- it is *not* due to a global shortage of food!

[*As an aside: My response to your post has caused me to re-read my own and I've just noticed that I've said "on mass" a few times when obviously I meant "en masse". There are other slight mistakes as well. It always amazes me just how many mistakes I make when writing off the cuff without really proofreading. Sorry about the writing quality but you get the point I was trying to make I hope.]
Posted by thinkabit, Thursday, 23 September 2010 12:51:42 PM
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The idea that "There is plenty of food for all of us and 3 billion more," is at best, a sort of sleight-of-hand trick and at worst, an out-right lie. If we wanted to grow grain on all the potential farmland in the world, it is likely that perhaps 12 billion could survive in some fashion, but those of us in the developed world would hardly call it surviving.

If we define "plenty of food" as an Australian lifestyle, with not just food, but all the things that go with it, there is no way that 9.5 billion people could live that way. It is certainly clear that 9.5 billion people could not eat as much tuna, salmon, prawns, coffee, olives, cherries, bananas, chocolate, etc. that are at their limit in the natural environment or need to be grown in specific environments. I also have my doubts about beef and milk products because of the importance of refrigeration and transportation, but the calculations are tricky.

It is hard to say "Well we would all have great food but all the other parts of the lifestyle don't necessarily go with it." When you are talking about eating like the developed world you are talking about refrigeration everywhere and a highly developed transportation network. That just can't happen with the way that we currently use non-renewable resources. If you have a transportation network you use if for other things besides food transport. If you have reliable electricity for refrigeration, you use that electricity for lots of other things. if you have highly developed manufacturing that can make refrigerators, you also make other things.

If 9.5 billion people all used as much petroleum as Australians, all the known reserves would be used up in 7 years. We currently use about 85 million barrels of oil a day. If 9.5 billion people all used oil like Aussies it would be 400 million barrels of oil a day (and that would be making the Americans reduce their oil consumption).

It's not appropriate to just say there is, and always will be, plenty of food.
Posted by ericc, Thursday, 23 September 2010 1:44:46 PM
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You quite rightly target the root cause.....population growth.

Religious, business and politically correct stupidity, shouldn't stop the U.N. from declaring a global war on population growth.
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Thursday, 23 September 2010 2:06:26 PM
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The view that all of the problems on Easter Island were due to Europeans is not generally accepted, except among cornucopian growthists. This is from Jared Diamond's paper in Science (2007, vol. 317, p. 1612):

"Thus, major changes unfolded on Easter Island before European arrival. Those changes included deforestation; the loss of palm sap as a food and water source; switching from wood to grasses and sedges as fuel; establishing stone mulching; ceasing to carve statues, because deforestation meant no more big logs and fiber rope for transport; abandoning upland plantations, probably used to feed workers transporting statues; and (as described in oral traditions) increases in warfare, statue destruction by rival clans, and use of refuge caves. However, alternative views have been proposed.

One view is a version of Rousseau's noble savage myth: the claim that bad things began happening on Easter only after European arrival (13-15). Undoubtedly, Europeans on Easter, as elsewhere in the Pacific, did serious harm through slave raids, worsened erosion, and introduced diseases, grazing animals, and plants. But this view ignores or dismisses the abundant evidence, summarized above, for pre-European impacts.

Another view recognizes pre-European deforestation but blames it on hypothesized droughts (2). However, there is no direct information about climate change on Easter between A.D. 1000 and 1700. Easter's forests had already survived tens of thousands of years of climate fluctuations (1),...

According to a third view, deforestation was caused by introduced rats, as suggested by rat gnaw marks on many nuts of the extinct palm (15). This hypothesis does not account for all those palm stumps cut off at the ground and burned, nor for the larger number of palm nuts burned rather than gnawed, nor for the disappearance of the long-lived palm trees themselves (with an estimated life span of up to 2000 years) (16). If rats were responsible, they were unusual ones, equipped with fire and hatchets. Thousands of other Pacific islands overrun by introduced rats were not deforested, and many other tree species that survived on other rat-infested islands disappeared on Easter (16)."
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 23 September 2010 5:58:48 PM
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Worrying about food security, esspecially back home, is nothing compared to water security, as without water, food will not grow.

Meanwhile we continue to flush billions of litres of water into the oceans, after being used only once.

It's a bit like pissing into a fan.
Posted by rehctub, Friday, 24 September 2010 6:52:38 AM
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Thinkabit,
you failed to answer the the query about The Anasazi and the Mayans.
Easter Island has been answered by Divergence.
However it is so obvious that if all the PRESENT world population lived at the same rate of consumption that the US & Australia do, there would be no possible way the resources could be supplied.
Unfortunately the millions in underdeveloped countries that are dieing from a lack of water, food and medicines will not benefit from the cornucopian theories bandied about by denialists.
So increasing the population even more will only casue more pain and suffering there.
Posted by sarnian, Friday, 24 September 2010 9:34:42 AM
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sarnian: You are still missing the point. So I'll try again:

Let's start again from the very first basic fact:

The food supply can either increase of decrease in the future*.

Logically, if the food supply increases then the population can increase-- this is what has been happening for the last 10000+ years since mankind has developed farming.

Contrariwise, if the food supply decreases then the population will decrease if it consumes are the same rate. However, the population can decrease by two methods: 1)starvation or 2)natural attrition due to death by old age.

However, people starve only if the food supply contracts dramatically within about 60 years because 60+ years is the average life span, ie. people starve if the food supply disappears *faster* than population can react by naturally dieing off from old age.

So the question the current worlds population dieing en masse in the future due to starvation amounts to asking if the current food supply is likely to dramatically drop off dramatically within the next 60 years. Now, there are some possible scenarios that could cause such a world-wide contraction: such as a meteorite impact, super volcano or some exotic new plant virus evolving and wiping out all the rice/wheat but these all quite unlikely. However, the scenarios that greenies like to paint about anthropomorphic global warming or running out of farm land or water are bogus. Global warming is bogus because (even if it exists) the global effects that could threaten food production are *very* gradual compared to 60 years, for example they're talking 100+ years for dangerous sea-level rise (within a hundred years the population can easily reduce itself due to natural attrition-- ie. people dieing from old age-- to handle any drop in food supply). Running out of farm land is bogus because it is simply not true-- we are actually creating more productive land each year and increasing yields each year.

... continued below ...
Posted by thinkabit, Friday, 24 September 2010 10:55:25 AM
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You mention that if the all of the world's *PRESENT* population had the consumption rates of the USA or Australia then we wouldn't be able to feed them with the current food supply. However the (obvious) point to make about this is that the present *don't* have the consumption rates of developed countries-- and consequently the world's food supply can currently easily feed them (obviously it can feed them because otherwise they would be dieing from starvation). *Nobody* in the world is currently dieing from starvation due to a global lack of food-- for those that are dieing from starvation it is due entirely to local/regional disruptions of the food supply. The world currently has more than enough food to feed the world!

When the developing nations start to consume more and catch up with our first world consumption you will notice something-- their populations will stabilize or even decrease-- the reason why is because it costs a *lot* more to raise a child in a developed country than in a developing country-- this is the main reason why couples generally only have 1 or 2 people in Australia (contrary to what feminist will tell about the womens rights and the pill). The thing to note about people having small families in developed countries is that *nobody* told them/made them have a small family-- they do it automatically due to the laws of economics.
Whereas as in developing countries it doesn't cost as much to raise children-- in fact having a large family can actually *make* you money because you can use the child's labour to produce food/goods.
Basically, when the cost of raising a child to the standard excepted by the society it lives in increases, the average number of children born per family decreases.

In short the world doesn't have an impending a global food crises due to depleted resources/environmental degradation-- simply because we have plenty of time react naturally to act any such scenario. Also, as the consumption rates per person of developing countries increases in the coming decades, the reproduction rates in those countries will decrease.
Posted by thinkabit, Friday, 24 September 2010 10:58:01 AM
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thinkabit
Well said, you are right.

We are frequently told that population growth exceeds the earth’s “carrying capacity” as if this were some incontrovertible positive datum. But this assumes that the speaker knows all the production possibilities in the world, now and in the future, including all people’s subjective relative values, the relative scarcity of all resources, all possible innovations and so on. It is an absurd false pretence of knowledge.

It’s literally as stupid as someone saying, 100,000 years ago, that population growth is exceeding the world’s carrying capacity because there aren’t enough caves to house six billion people. Their confidence in their own opinion is completely misplaced.

The neo-Malthusians are wrong because they have the same static mindset as Malthus and Ehrlich. The irrationality of their beliefs is shown by the fact that they regard the disproof of their predictions as even greater proof of their theories: - Malthus and Ehrlich predicted certain catastrophe within a certain time, it hasn't happened, *so that means it's even more certain now*.

Since the concern of the catastrophists is scarcity, and since scarcity is the subject matter of economics, I wish they would have the humility to try to educate themselves on a subject on which they are, so far, more voluble than thoughtful.

I respectfully commend the following as a good start for the curiosity of our readership.

(ridiculosity of Dick Smith’s population alarums)
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/population-puzzle-solved/

The Malthusian Trap
http://mises.org/daily/1675

Earth Jurisprudence
http://economics.org.au/2010/09/earth-jurisprudence/

(the anti-human environmental movement)
http://mises.org/daily/4725
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 24 September 2010 1:57:21 PM
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Thinkabit,
You are not taking into account the approaching elephant in the corner of the world, peak oil.
I realize that you will not accept that there is such a thing but it is a fact that world oil production has reached a plateau since 2005 and is unlikely to ever increase.
The reason for this is the steep decline in oil finds for the last 30 years, leading to the position where the demand has outstripped the supply. Even if there were new Giant oil fields waiting to be found and that is a most unlikely scenario, it takes at least ten years to bring them on line.
Why is oil so important to the food crisis?
Without oil there can be no “green revolution”.
Food production, distribution, storage will all decrease dramatically as in your “sudden decrease “ theory.
Not just in 60 years but perhaps in 10 years. Would that be “sudden” enough?
Oil companies are not even building new refineries to process the amount of oil that will be need, because they know the oil will not be available to process, leading to a shortage of refinery processing space as well as a shortage of oil.

You say. Running out of farmland is bogus because it is simply not true-- we are actually creating more productive land each year and increasing yields each year.

With the increase in the amount of good farming land being taken up by expanding cities catering for the blow out of bigger populations no increase is at all likely in fact a net decrease is more probable.

You say. *Nobody* in the world is currently dieing from starvation due to a global lack of food-- for those that are dieing from starvation it is due entirely to local/regional disruptions of the food supply. The world currently has more than enough food to feed the world!

If there are no ways to distribute the “more than enough food to feed the world (which I dispute) it has the same effect as dieing from lack of food.
Posted by sarnian, Friday, 24 September 2010 3:11:20 PM
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Samian
Governments are shutting down the production of fossil fuels in more ways than can possibly be counted.

There is loads of fuel. For example there is enough black coal alone to keep the world going for hundreds more years at current rates of consumption, and that's not counting all the shales, nor any undiscovered resources. At present, mining can go down depths measures in hundreds of feet. But mining technology is improving all the time, and would improve even faster if governments would stop bleeding the mining companies to pay for idiotic pinkbattism. Each increase in depth makes new reserves viable. The very rises in the price of oil make new reserves viable.

Talk of 'peak oil' contains the same error of static thinking as Malthus's. People don't try to use uneconomic resources, precisely because they are uneconomic. That's why they prefer to use up all of a resource that, at the time, is economc. Whether they are economic or not, changes over time relative to scarcity and demand. It is simply fallacious to judge the availability of energy by what oil is currently being produced: it is the Malthusian error all over again.

But even if peak oil is true, the idea that governments would be better at predicting the future and rationalising scarcity is mere culpable idiocy. The only viable conclusion of evidence and reason is that governments should get the hell out of the way, and stop killing large numbers of people with their meat-axe approach to solving problems of scarcity.
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 24 September 2010 3:40:39 PM
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We had better hope that global warming kicks in quick time.

Looks like we are going to need all that Siberian, Mongolian, & Green/Iceland land in production ASAP.

Close down those fool windmills, & get burning coal you lot.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 24 September 2010 4:32:45 PM
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Thank you hasbeen, a breath of fresh air at last.
Posted by sarnian, Friday, 24 September 2010 5:20:51 PM
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sarnian: Actually, I *do* believe in peak oil!! The reason why I believe is because I like to think rationally: oil is a finite resource and since we are using it up then logically there *must* be a point at which we have used up 50%-- ie, the peak. Also, it is a fact that once an oil field reaches a certain point in depletion it gets harder it is to retrieve each remaining barrel of oil. So, yes I *do* believe in peak oil.

But, I'm not worried at all about it at all! The reason why is same as the argument I used in the population debate. Basically, the peak and decline is a slow gradual event-- slow enough that we have plenty of time to either-1) switch to a new fuel source or 2)reduce our population by natural attrition.

It is interesting that even the greenies admit that according to the laws of physics we can supply all our energy needs without having to use *any* fossil fuels by methods such as solar. In fact, the ecofreaks are constantly telling us this. However, at this current point in time oil/coal is the cheapest option. All other non-fossil alternatives currently cost a lot more. So we *can't* supply all our current needs according to the laws of economics without a dire effect on the economy. So dire effect that if it were mandated that the world switch within the next 10 years away from all fossil fuels then this could suddenly shock the economic system to the extent that food production drops resulting in mass starvation for the poor. Hopefully, For the sake of us and our children we will never implement such a crazy idea.

To prevent this sort of shock the best strategy is to let the fossil fuel supply dry up over the coming decades and let the population naturally adjust. ie, business as usual.
Posted by thinkabit, Friday, 24 September 2010 5:57:52 PM
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thinkabit

Good that you didn't mention pollution, I did but I think I got away with it.

With apologies to John Cleese.
Posted by Severin, Saturday, 25 September 2010 8:13:12 AM
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thinkabit,

You are ignoring the role of inadequate safety margins in the disasters leading to societal collapses. What turned the late blight, which repeatedly wiped out potato crops in 1840s Ireland, from a run of bad luck into an absolute disaster that caused 1 - 1.5 million deaths by starvation and forced another 1.5 - 2 million people to emigrate was that a significant proportion of the population were living on land holdings that were too small to feed a family on anything but potatoes. This was partly because the British had confiscated a good deal of the best land to grow export crops (since England was losing the ability to feed itself), but the main reason was population growth (from ~1.2 million in 1600 to 8.5 million in 1848) and inheritance customs (and colonial laws) that required land to be subdivided among all the sons.

You are also ignoring demographic momentum in assuming that people can adapt smoothly to limits to growth. A population can go on growing for up to another 70 years after fertility rates have fallen down to or below replacement level. This is because rapid population growth results in a pyramid shaped age distribution, so for a long time, the births are in the very large young adult generation, but most of the deaths are in the relatively tiny elderly generation. That is why a third of Australia's population growth is still coming from natural increase, even though the fertility rate has been below replacement level since 1976.
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 25 September 2010 6:08:18 PM
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There are similarities with arguments for food supply and water supply.

In Australia, the growth advocates regularly confuse the issue of water resources, with no distinction made between water that is available and the time over which it is available. As an example, no distinction is made between water falling as a deluge during a tropical wet season and steady and regular rainfall. The former can be very damaging, is impractical to capture, and is available over a short time frame. The latter provides a far more substantial benefit, yet the growth advocates would have you believe that all rainfall is equal. It isn't.

Similarly, you might have a massive crop of strawberries available over a month or so. Even with substantial price discounts, most of the strawberries will go rotten. But, according to the growth advocates, those strawberries are regarded as being available year round in an average amount, and the fact that the strawberries have gone rotten is attributed to inefficient distribution networks. Of course, the food distribution networks are similar to the massive water pumping infrastructure that some have advocated for drought proofing Australia. Yes, it might be technically possible to send the commodity great distances, but what is the point of transporting a cheap resource at great expense to a distant place where it is unaffordable?
Posted by Fester, Sunday, 26 September 2010 11:11:43 AM
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but what is the point of transporting a cheap resource at great expense to a distant place where it is unaffordable?

Fester, the answer in my view lies with finding efficient ways to reuse water, rather than the current practice of wasting it.

Remember, we collect water, we treat it, we shower and wash our cloths in 'A grade' drinking water, we then collect it again, treat it again and then dump it.

It clearly is a 'no brainer', don't you think.
Posted by rehctub, Monday, 27 September 2010 7:03:10 AM
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I have not read all the posts here but a lot seem to assume that the
world population will be decreased by starvation.
This not necessarily so. I suggest two possibilities.

1. Energy depletion will not be sudden due to buffering by biofuels etc.
If so while food production will fall the effect on populations will
be a reduction in fertility due to a restricted diet.

2. If as some who have studied complex systems suggest that failure in
energy supply and or a failure in world finance and trading facilities
may be sudden and unexpected. The whole collapse can
be triggered by the loss of a key component in the energy train or financial system.
This would result in a sudden failure of the agricultural infrastructure.
This would not allow time for poor diet to reduce population and
mass starvation would result in may parts of the world.

I think that the risk of a sudden collapse may well be more than 50%.
There have been a couple of studies on Oil Drum and ANZ,oildrum.
It probably needs n actuary not steeped in conventional economics to
do a study on this aspect otherwise we are just all scrambling around
with pet theories.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 27 September 2010 4:40:52 PM
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thinkabit I am curious as to your idea of a world / society that we should aim for. Business as usual leaves the rich very nicely off and the poor with very little and little chance of getting a good life. Is that okay with you? Do you think it will be easier to feed 10 billion than 9 billion or 8 billion? Do you think that abillion people living on less than $2 a day is okay and if there are more in the future that is okay too? Do you think that encouraging governments around the world to encourage stable population is a bad idea?

Peter Hume from reading the links it seems like your focus is unrestricted capitalism? Why does low immigration mean governments interfering with capitalism? It seems to me that high immigration is government intervention.
Posted by ericc, Monday, 27 September 2010 10:17:43 PM
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Dick Smith's bit on TV about Australia's population growth problem was helpful as was David Attenborough's discussion of world population. We need to bring it home to the politicians that workg needs to be done to halt Australia's population increase.
While we should have compassion for refugees, we should not mistake migrants from 3rd world countries as us being compassionate. The brains of these people are a loss to their country as they exacerbate the population problems in this country.
Posted by Michael Dw, Monday, 27 September 2010 10:18:34 PM
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"the answer in my view lies with finding efficient ways to reuse water, rather than the current practice of wasting it.

Remember, we collect water, we treat it, we shower and wash our cloths in 'A grade' drinking water, we then collect it again, treat it again and then dump it.

It clearly is a 'no brainer', don't you think."

rehctub, you need to understand the efficiency driver. Were you to travel back thirty years and spout about efficient water use to Brisbane residents, you would rightly be regarded as a nutter. Water wasn't even metered then, and water tanks were banned because of their potential to harbour disease carrying mozzies.

Water, like any commodity, has a value which reflects the balance between supply and demand. When it is plentiful there is no economic basis for recycling, but add enough consumers and that changes.

And you might also think about what rainfall does. Far from being wasted, the flow of water from land to see is a basis for many natural ecosystems and life cycles. How would repeated recycling of water affect this life?

I think that it was better with unmetered water. Three decades of high immigration has changed that.
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 28 September 2010 8:12:52 PM
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