Yes, thanks Divergence. Overpopulation is not mandatory. We can get our population back in balance with the resource base which is really what this whole argument is all about.

Our government is doing it for us.
Divergence,
I blame the opposition equally !

popnperish writes "It warns that The global food system is headed for failure".

This is the fundamental difference between us. I look back at the past, observe that every single time, every single time, doomsayers declare that we are headed for disaster food-wise, they were wrong. Not just a little wrong. Not just wrong on the margins. But hopelessly, utterly wrong.

And from that I draw the conclusion that its likely the current doomsayers are almost certainly wrong, particularly when all current trends are headed in a favourable direction.

You on the other hand, ignore all the previous evidence that the predictions are wrong, ignore th reasons why they were wrong and utterly fall for the new projections.

Perhaps working on the basis that they can't be wrong all the time works for you. But I don't think like that.

Divergence writes "others are assuming that we will always be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat..".

Well that holds water because its always been true. Humanity has never, ever run out of any resource. Humanity has always found new ways to do things when the old ways became untenable or too expensive or unavailable."The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones and the oil age won't end because we ran out of oil".

Of course all of this relies on the operations of the market. In those places where the market is constrained, we can indeed run out of resources eg the Ukranian famines in the 1930s.

Nonsense, mhaze

Plenty of past societies have collapsed, with the collapse often related to overexploitation of their environment. See David R. Montgomery's book "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations". He has a nice section of the collapse of the Sumerian city states due to salinity problems caused by over-irrigation. Saddam Hussein actually had a program to try to restore land that the Sumerians had wrecked 5,000 years ago.

We also have serious problems with land degradation in Australia. Markets discount the future. The market can actually encourage farmers to do things that will raise production in the short term, but have devastating effects in the future. A farmer who will be dead in another 50 years can quite legally take actions that will make land effectively worthless for future generations.

Hear hear Divergence. mhaze does not take into account climate change which has had localised effects in the past but these days is affecting the whole planet. If we go to 4 degrees warming, Ross Garnaut has warned that will wipe out 98% of food production in the Murray-Darling Basin - our food basket.
Sorry mhaze, but the past is no longer a predictor of the future. We are severely overpopulated and may lose millions of people with decades from starvation, not least on the Gangetic Plain where water tables are falling dramatically. When the underground waters go, then so does irrigated farming and the region will not be able to sustain nearly as many people as it does now.

Popnperish,

Forty years ago, in a geomorphology class, I learnt that the tectonic plate on which Bengal sits was sliding under the Himalayan Plate and tilting towards the east. So the land was sinking in the east, i.e. Bangla Desh, but rising in Indian Bengal.

So it appeared that the sea was rising in the south-east, and that - sooner or later - there would be problems further up the Ganges. As you point out so clearly, it would appear as if the water table was falling. Certainly, it is likely that, in addition to tectonic activity, that too much water is also being taken out of the ground, exacerbating the situation.

But it may not have much to do with climate change :) Good god, what have I written ?!

Joe