What is humanity's capacity to feed itself?
January 11, 2008 11:31 PM   Subscribe

In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus promised "Famine ... the last, the most dreadful resource of nature." It took another 125 years for world population to double, but only 50 more for it to redouble. By the 1940s, Mexi­co, China, India, Russia, and Europe were hungry.
posted by amyms (40 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
What Malthus failed to forsee is the substitution of technology, petroleum and coal for human and animal labor. Now we sail into a brighter tomorrow. Thankfully the oil will never run out.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:53 PM on January 11, 2008


What BrotherCaine failed to foresee is the substitution of (insert future innovation here) for petroleum and coal. Now we sail into a brighter tomorrow. Thankfully the (innovation) will never run out.
posted by tepidmonkey at 11:56 PM on January 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


A pundit's outdated and poorly thought-through attempts to justify regressive political ideologies, news at eleven.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:15 AM on January 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Human population increases are not caused by increased food resources; the population explosion has been caused by a decrease in infant mortality as a result of better medical care and sanitation.

If your children are going to die, and you need a big family to work the farm, then you will have more children to compensate for this mortality rate. The problem many so-called developing countries have is that infant mortality is not low enough, and people still have more kids to compensate for this. But it is getting better, but not fast enough. Ironically, some parts of China are already experiencing the "demographic shift" of extremely low birthrates, and may also experience the 'old population' syndrome that Japan, Europe, and, to a certain extent, North America are now experiencing.

But these massive populations have to be fed, and global warming is going to make the situation pretty grim. The Green Revolution helped us in the seventies, but the challenge of drought and extremely hot temperatures has got to be met.

There is enough food for everyone on Earth, it's just that we don't distribute it well. Or some fucker starts a war that prevents people from growing crops.

Malthus is a pretty chilling individual.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:25 AM on January 12, 2008 [4 favorites]


I might add that the chief cause of famine in Malthus' time was taxation - feed the king before your children. There is food enough for all.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:25 AM on January 12, 2008


People have been pissing and moaning about the end of the world since they came up with the necessary concepts. Or at least a very long time.
posted by delmoi at 1:02 AM on January 12, 2008


KokoRyu: this planet can produce X calories which is enough to feel Y people. What is the value of Y? It isn't infinity even under conditions of perfect distribution and perfect sustainability (ie, good until the sun eats the earth for lunch) - the conditions that concern you.

We're pretty much at the planet's limit for exploitable water sources right now. We can make our food more energy efficient - no more meat, and no distilling corn for fuel for starters. Nonetheless, this still results in a finite food supply.
posted by MillMan at 1:59 AM on January 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Catastrophism
posted by elpapacito at 2:26 AM on January 12, 2008


What's your consumption factor?NYTimes, login required Last week's column by Jared Diamond, in which he points out that it isn't so much the population that exerts pressure on the earth, it's the amount of consumption per individual.
posted by Araucaria at 2:46 AM on January 12, 2008


Effective life-extension medications (and/or therapies) will be widely available within 20 years. They'll probably (considering the demand and the profits) be widely pirated and almost universally available, and not just for the rich (like space tourism). And then?

[additionally, by 2028 affordable AI tech will be surpassing Turing test levels (and beyond), global warming will really be kicking in, and most of the oceans will be completely depleted. Fun fun fun. ]
posted by Auden at 2:55 AM on January 12, 2008


Thankfully the oil will never run out.

Well, the coal will last a while.
posted by ryanrs at 3:36 AM on January 12, 2008


What tepidmonkey failed to foresee is the substitution of Soylent Green for traditional food. Now we sail into a brighter tomorrow. Thankfully the Soylent Green will never run out.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:04 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Never.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:04 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


this planet can produce X calories which is enough to feel Y people. What is the value of Y?

Neither X nor Y are fixed values. They're both curves, with only theoretical limits, which aren't particularly useful in the real world. The things we should do, e.g. promote development in undeveloped areas, remain the same regardless of the values of X and Y. We might as well be trying to figure out the lifespan of the sun, as that has about as much impact on our actions.
posted by scottreynen at 5:15 AM on January 12, 2008


Don't forget that population growth is rapidly leveling off all over the world, as it always does with modernization. The population of the planet will peak in this century somewhere in the 10 billion people rane, and will then begin to decline perhaps as rapidly as it rose.

Has there ever been anyone so wrong as Malthus?
posted by LarryC at 5:44 AM on January 12, 2008


Population Connection
posted by your mom at 5:47 AM on January 12, 2008


LarryC: Try reading the article Araucaria linked. Here, I'll save you the trouble by copying the nutshell:
Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. ... China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.
The problem is not population, it's consumption.
posted by languagehat at 6:39 AM on January 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


languagehat, the problem is both.
posted by freedryk at 7:44 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


BUT PAUL ERLICH WAS WRONG GO BACK TO UR IVORY TOWAR U LIBURLS LOL!!!!1111

The population of the planet will peak in this century somewhere in the 10 billion people rane, and will then begin to decline perhaps as rapidly as it rose.

10 billion people. Sounds like a nice, even manageable number. 10 billion. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? There's a problem, though.

The problem, as languagehat describes, is that our planet's finite resources (and our finite resources to extract them) places an upper limit on how many people can attain a First-World way of life. I'm willing to entertain the idea that Earth can "sustain" 10 billion people -- but 10 billion Americans? Can we eek out enough fuel in the soil to operate (say) 12 billion cars a year? "But technology will save us! We'll all develop hydrogen cars that run on water!" And will all those newly minted first-worlders be able to afford the enormous cost of processed hydrogen? I doubt many of us could afford it now.

The point is, our planet is about to hit an "affluence ceiling", which, in real terms, is indistinguishable from a "population ceiling". Overpopulation means that 90% of the world will be permanently fixed below the top 10%, or perhaps even the top 1%, in terms of access to resources. Do you think the poor of the world will be content to live in these shackles forever? Do you think that the teeming masses of Neo Lagos won't look upon the shiny, well-manicured lawns of Suburbia, USA with a mixture of envy and disgust? Are you going to be the one to explain to them that they can't have shiny cars and nice homes, because in doing so, they would be taking those things away from much more deserving white people?

The poor of the world already see this happening, however. They see the largest and richest First-World nation spending hundreds of millions of dollars every day to secure a foothold in the world's richest oil-producing region. They aren't stupid. They know that when things get tight, we'll just take whatever we need, and let them have the scraps from our table, if we feel like it. That is our real future: not "perpetual growth and riches for everyone", but "riches for me, dwindling resources, wars and poverty for you." Would it be different if our population were much lower? In the end, not really. Having a lower population would only move the date of our inevitable doom farther into the future, although perhaps so far into the future as to be "never" by our human standards. Sadly, I think thats the best we can really hope for: just pushing the deadline farther and farther ahead forever.
posted by Avenger at 7:47 AM on January 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


Avenger,

Enjoyed that last post. Can you cite or recommend any articles or sources that influenced your opinion?
posted by Telf at 7:53 AM on January 12, 2008


UG99 seems like the sort of problem that might be susceptible to a technological fix of some kind. I suppose that makes it appealing as a point of focus for someone who wants to argue against the inevitability of a (neo-)Malthusian catastrophe. It contributes to a rather weak and incoherent treatment of the subject (in the linked article, not Borlaug himself about whom I know little.)

I find Jared Diamond's more considered optimism much more appealing.
posted by sfenders at 8:16 AM on January 12, 2008


Avenger,

Enjoyed that last post. Can you cite or recommend any articles or sources that influenced your opinion?


Arithmetic, Population and Energy, by Dr. Albert Bartlett

Chevron: "The Era of Easy oil is over".

Our very own Zoogleplex on Oil consumption and the cost to extract said oil.

Our own Pastabagel on Oil Consumption, and the fact that we're already having trouble paying for it.

(Naturally oil isn't the only resource that can be depleted, just the one that impacts our industrial economy the most)

There are others, but I'm off to work!
posted by Avenger at 8:53 AM on January 12, 2008 [7 favorites]


Oh piffle. Human beings are not so many gazelles on a savanna of X acres. We make our resources. The question is not how much we consume but how we produce that which we consume. There are environmentally sustainable options for everything we need, but those options are more expensive. Only wealthier societies can afford environmental protection. And wealthier societies also produce fewer children. What the planet needs is economic growth, advancing technology, and to have both coupled to an environmental awakening. Invention needs to out pace consumption. Is this happening? It seems to me that it is.

Pessimism is all the rage I know, but I miss out on so many fashions.
posted by LarryC at 8:56 AM on January 12, 2008


Welcome to the future: poor people suffer and die in their millions, rich people barely notice, humanity keeps plodding on.
It is very similar to the past.
posted by greytape at 9:38 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Humans civilization has already well outgrown the Earth's natural capacity to feed it.

The problem now is that greedy and lazy humans are operating systems by which they can feed themselves. And those systems are, by and large, wasteful, short-sighted, and non-renewable. The operators of those systems aren't interested in providing clean, cheap, renewable resources for all... they're interested in profit.

As with so many other areas, the problem here isn't resources or distribution... it's greed.
posted by JWright at 10:02 AM on January 12, 2008


If the problem is consumption, then what's consumption? If it's measured as a value, then there's no point in talking about a looming "ceiling": innovation in artistic or technological arts may increase the value from a given set of physical inputs. If you really mean we're running out of fresh water, oil, biodiversity, and other resources that seem difficult to replace, then I agree. We're using them up at an unsustainable pace.

But Malthus has a really bad track record. It's reckless to count on unknown innovation to deliver us, but still I'd bet against Malthus. I'd like to end our savage abuse of this planet because we rather like it (which I rather do), not because someone invents a "consumption ceiling".
posted by ~ at 10:26 AM on January 12, 2008


You gotta admit, though, Malthus is an excellent name. I'm going to name my son Malthus. Malthus Zombie.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:59 AM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


malthus was wrong on food but the implication remains: pop. expands expoentially. Thus, while one comment noted increase is use of natural resources, think on this: India now making 2,500 buck car and expects to sell one million per year. China, also getting wealthier will also begin making and using cheap cars. Aside from using huge natural resources, what of pollution that will expand.

Malthus thought disasterous would take out many and keep pop somewhat controlled but increasingly as noted in one comment,we live longer, generally, and use technology to increase longivity. And that too eats at resources that are not renewable.
I am not suggesting the end of the world, but the quality of life is sure to diminish, and,more to the point, those producing larger families tend to be less educated, and they are now increasingly relocating to better-off places for survival--thus immigration to wealthier nations, where they will take low-paying jobs but have more babies and have needs for medical help, schooling, rentals etc..
Demographics ought not be so readily dismissed. Example: the older pop in US moves much more now to southern states--age and thwe sount = conservativism. Andthus in the tnext very few years, Texas will get 4 new congressmen, Florida, two etc etc

Now in the US we are not overly crowded, right? But can you recall what your main highways used to be like...and are now? And the migration from farmlands to cities? and suburbs that are now more nearlyf like the cities your parents fled?
posted by Postroad at 11:14 AM on January 12, 2008


Hey, each and every one of us can run as millions of instances once we upload into the computonium!
posted by Artw at 12:13 PM on January 12, 2008


by 2028 affordable AI tech will be surpassing Turing test levels (and beyond)

There's optimistic Singularitarianism like this, and there's the future in analyses such as Planet of Slums, where by 2050 half the world's population will apparently be heating their food and water by burning their dried turds from the week before.
posted by meehawl at 1:07 PM on January 12, 2008


I look forward to talking to all of you dipshit "we're all gonna die" hipsters in 2050, when the world is cleaner, richer and more prosperous for everyone than it is right now. I imagine you'll still be unhappy.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:09 PM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


..thus immigration to wealthier nations, where they will take low-paying jobs but have more babies and have needs for medical help, schooling, rentals etc..

Nothing much to say except that this is highly contested. Immigration is generally thought of as a net economic win here in Canada (ymmv).

As to the environmental impact of the "Nano". Meh. Call me when the average NA vehicle is within pissing distance of its fuel efficiency, then we might have some right to wring our hands about it.
posted by ~ at 2:38 PM on January 12, 2008


I'm surprised no one's brought up epidemic disease, which if things get sufficiently bad, has the potential to be our safety valve whether we want it to or not.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 4:28 PM on January 12, 2008


I look forward to talking to all of you dipshit "we're all gonna die" hipsters in 2050, when the world is cleaner, richer and more prosperous for everyone than it is right now. I imagine you'll still be unhappy.

Well, we are all going to die, aren't we? I happen to think that the great measure of our lives is not so much when (or even how) we die, but the world that we leave behind for everyone else.

Is that what you really want? For everybody to just stop thinking about all this future shit and be happy? Does it make you unhappy that people think of these things?

For the record, CPB, I'm not unhappy about humanity as a whole. The fact that we have the capacity to both realize and thwart many of the problems we face actually gives me great hope for our loveable little species. I do know, however, that for the cleaner, richer, more prosperous future to come about, it will take more than head-burying and name calling. It will take a great deal of effort on our part -- and a great deal of moral and political leadership.

So this dipshit, for one, is doing his damnedest to make sure that your future actually comes about. Maybe you can thank me then ..... if you're still happy.
posted by Avenger at 4:35 PM on January 12, 2008


No one has yet breathed the words "birth control". This should figure heavily, shouldn't it?

Because it's either going to be birth control, or infanticide, eventually. (hey, maybe both!)
posted by marble at 7:36 PM on January 12, 2008


Does it make you unhappy that people think of these things?

It makes me unhappy when people think of these things in the wrong way and attempt to shame others into changing their behavior for the wrong reasons.

For example...

Are you going to be the one to explain to them that they can't have shiny cars and nice homes, because in doing so, they would be taking those things away from much more deserving white people?

This is THE classic mistake made by people that simply don't understand economics. The world economy is not like a pizza with a fixed number of slices, where if I take two slices someone else goes hungry. This is a basic, basic understanding that Adam Smith enumerated in excruciating detail more than 200 years ago.

Sigh.

We're just not headed for the dystopian, worldwide Blade Runner future, no matter how rad it might seem to watch airships fly overhead telling you "A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure..."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:44 PM on January 12, 2008


The world economy is not like a pizza with a fixed number of slices, where if I take two slices someone else goes hungry.

I'm sure the Maya would agree with you.
posted by meehawl at 9:21 PM on January 12, 2008


Thank you, meehawl, for that stunning insight. I'm truly gobsmacked. I failed to understand I was in the presence of Greatness. Perhaps only your incredible knowledge can correct this article, which says, "Some eighty-eight different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya Collapse have been identified."

Yawn.

Next.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:56 PM on January 12, 2008


You're seriously using Wikipedia to frig your troll? How amusing - is that really all you have? A bulletin board for teenagers and shut-ins?

Some eighty-eight different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya Collapse have been identified. The entry you quote from breaks them down into four environmental factors (all increasingly consequent upon a heightened population density) and four political causes (2 out of 4 of which are also consequent upon an increasing population). The quote itself is an excerpt from Gill's catastrophist Droughts, which spends a great deal of timing positing a perfect storm of environmental conditions and climate change that conspired to push an over-populated Maya living at the the edge of their carrying capacity over the edge. Rather similar to Mike Davis's theory about the decline of early modern China during the Qing Dynasty as its booming population exceeded the carrying capacity of the irrigation system constructed over the previous couple of centuries.

So in fact, you're advocating climate change awareness. I agree entirely with you. It's good to know you're on board in the struggle to make preparations to mitigate against the dangers of climate change, especially considering our increasing population can reduced carrying capacity.
posted by meehawl at 10:23 PM on January 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


"The world economy is not like a pizza with a fixed number of slices, where if I take two slices someone else goes hungry ..."

Said the man with two delicious slices of pizza.

Anyway, if the world does turn out to be "cleaner, richer and more prosperous for everyone" in 2050 - which I'm not at all sure will be the case - it will probably be due to the work of the people who were aware that there were serious problems much more than the people who simply assumed that everything would turn out all right. So I, for one, would like to thank Malthus, Carson, Gore, and all of the other doomsayers who might be giving us a fighting chance to fix the very real problems they are pointing out. So if you are lucky enough to have that conversation with today's doomsaying hipsters in a clean, rich world in 2050, I sure hope they tell you, "You're welcome."
posted by kyrademon at 3:41 AM on January 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


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