The Next Big Threat?
April 9, 2008 4:33 PM Subscribe

Food insecurity may not be as sexy a cause as climate change, refugees or terrorism, (or bird flu for that matter) but for many people around the world, rising food prices are driving them to riot .

Various commentators are linking the problem to climate change, biofuels and greed. Even if many people in 'the West' don't care about poor people not being able to afford food, will they care if it becomes a security threat?

Recently discussed on a similar theme on Metafilter here

posted by Megami (44 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

Fuel costs are the bugaboo of the moment in the USA (truckers, you have my sympathy...Hummerites, not so much).

But when water (another thread) and food become hard to come by, whatever the cause(s), you are hearing the hooves of the Four Horsemen.
posted by kozad at 4:40 PM on April 9, 2008

“Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st
century will be over water.”

— Isamil Serageldin
World Bank Vice President
posted by mullingitover at 4:57 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Too little food can mean too many people, and I'd rather not conjure up a shortage of something that was never there as a reliable supply to begin with. Humans can control their populations in vulnerable areas easier than their food supply.
posted by Brian B. at 4:57 PM on April 9, 2008

Fuel costs are the bugaboo of the moment in the USA

And a root cause of the food price rise. Why? All those acres of corn and soy going into ethanol and biodiesel production.
posted by eriko at 5:01 PM on April 9, 2008

Too little food can mean too many people, and I'd rather not conjure up a shortage of something that was never there as a reliable supply to begin with.

There is more than enough food to go around; there is more than enough food production to feed the world. It's just how wealth is distributed, that's all.

You could say that there are too many people, but it doesn't change the reality that there are 6 billion plus of us. Besides, the average North American uses at least five times as many resources as folks living in the developing world.

We need to find a way to feed everyone.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:07 PM on April 9, 2008

Oil wars. Water wars. Food wars. It's all the same root: Too many people for the planet to support.

It's not like this hasn't been predicted for the last 40 years. Makes me wonder if humanity is even worth saving since we can't get our act together until the very last minute. It's either denial, greed, stupidity. I dunno.

I have noted with extreme disappointment that every time we try to talk about these kinds of issues people attempt to derail the topic with "Oh Noes! Road Warrior! You're doom sayers!" and the usual jokes about apocalyptic porn.
posted by tkchrist at 5:08 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's all the same root: Too many people for the planet to support.

Er...no. Too many people for the planet to support if (a) lots of those people are poor and can't afford to buy the food at market prices and (b) the market is being distorted by subsidies that divert massive amounts of farmland to the production of biofuels.
posted by Dasein at 5:12 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

There is more than enough food to go around; there is more than enough food production to feed the world. It's just how wealth is distributed, that's all.

That is a total myth. It must be killed. The longer it goes on the worse things are gonna get. It MIGHT have been true in 1986. But it's not true anymore.

We absolutely MUST deal with our over population.

It's only true if you factor cheap fertilizers and cheap energy for cultivation and transport into the equation. Which has been an illusion completely based on the use of cheap fossil fuels. That AND plentiful clean water.

Those days are over.

There is no way we can efficiently and sustainably grow and transport enough food to feed six BILLION people. There is not enough renewable arable land, cheap easily available energy, or fresh water on the planet.
posted by tkchrist at 5:16 PM on April 9, 2008 [2 favorites]

Here in Korea, more than 70% of total food consumed is imported. The exception being rice, which is protected (and many protests have been launched by farmers to keep it that way), but which is several times more expensive than elsewhere in the world.

Though price increases are uneven across different types of food and depending on source thanks to some recent free trade agreements with other countries, I've seen some basic food products literally doubling in retail price in the last year, including ones that are grown locally. Not coincidentally, Korea imports effectively 100% of its fuel requirments.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:33 PM on April 9, 2008

There is more than enough food to go around; there is more than enough food production to feed the world. It's just how wealth is distributed, that's all.

Wealthy people eat as much food as everyone else, maybe less, and it's not as though we're not planting our fields. The problem is that we ship some food and tell ourselves it was an unforeseen drought or distribution problem this entire time. That works for excuses because to say it was a cash flow problem, it wouldn't sound right, and to say it was a population problem would mean it could only be solved with immigration, and that doesn't fly either.

You could say that there are too many people, but it doesn't change the reality that there are 6 billion plus of us.

You could say that we have enough food to feed everyone, but that doesn't change the reality that there are twice as many people as there were a generation ago while farmland barely increased.

Besides, the average North American uses at least five times as many resources as folks living in the developing world.

Because we also produce so much commercial output? That's an interesting point you raised, because besides overeating itself, it implies a massive wrongdoing or waste, implying that folks in the developing world are doing it right, or more efficiently, which contradicts your point. Again, note that they might have overpopulation for their landmass and that WE might be producing too much as a result for the planet to remain healthy.
posted by Brian B. at 6:51 PM on April 9, 2008

"We absolutely MUST deal with our over population."

Aren't we doing that by burning through the world's oil supply as quickly as we can?
posted by Eideteker at 6:53 PM on April 9, 2008

Civilization is about three or four meals away from anarchy.
posted by stbalbach at 7:08 PM on April 9, 2008

The biggest threat to the US food supply, in a short term crisis scenario, is the supply chain, namely trucks and truckers. What could take out trucks? Pandemic. Everyone stays home. Governments have planed for this scenario by recommending everyone keep a few days or weeks of food on hand.

In terms of the longer term problem of bio-fuels. American farmers have always prided themselves as "feeding the world" and they deserve the praise. But when pictures of riots and starving people hit the TV, American farmers ain't looking so honorable and upstanding standing next to an ethanol truck with fields of grain the background.
posted by stbalbach at 7:16 PM on April 9, 2008

There is more than enough food to go around; there is more than enough food production to feed the world. It's just how wealth is distributed, that's all.

That is a total myth. It must be killed. The longer it goes on the worse things are gonna get. It MIGHT have been true in 1986. But it's not true anymore.

Just curious, is there a legitimate report you can cite that makes the "population" conclusion? Not that I believe over-population isn't a concern.
posted by peppito at 7:25 PM on April 9, 2008

There is no way we can efficiently and sustainably grow and transport enough food to feed six BILLION people. There is not enough renewable arable land, cheap easily available energy, or fresh water on the planet.

Folks have mentioned in this thread that while population has exponentially increased, arable land has not. But look at what we use arable land for: biofuels and feed for livestock, for example. Stop feeding beef cattle grain and convert that land (and water) towards growing food for humans.

Many of the issues around food security being experienced right now are because countries such as Egypt import basic foods such as cereals and rice on the world market. Currency fluctuations, coupled with inflation and scarcity are the blame, rather than a rising population that suddenly can't feed itself.

The housing meltdown and credit crunch is also partly to blame. Investors are putting their money into commodities, which is also causing inflation. The weakening American dollar and the inflated price of oil is also to blame.

I just hate it when people say there's too many people on the planet. We talk about birth control, but forget that birth rates in countries like India, China, Pakistan and Iran have stabilized and are approaching Western levels of low growth. The problem has been solved, but we're still dealing with the consequences of the postwar population boom.

And let's face it: the relatively small populations of the developed world use far far far more resources than those of the developing world. Food shortage problems are caused by us.

Which is why there is still enough food for all. But we have to work on wealth redistribution.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:26 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Apropos to this discussion, Robert Rapier has an interesting writeup of his recent trip to India over at The Oil Drum.

My host (and Bombay native) Kapil Girotra informed me that India is self-sufficient in food. He also told me that 70% or so of the population is vegetarian, which means it requires less land to feed them. On the other hand, I saw a very large portion of the population that certainly is not getting enough to eat. So you might say that they are barely self-sufficient. They do produce enough food to feed their population, but I saw a lot of undernourished people.

(There's a lot of other fascinating commentary, most of it about things other than food.)
posted by A dead Quaker at 7:33 PM on April 9, 2008

A lot of arguments about overpopulation seem to boil down to: "I would rather kill all or most of the poor people on the planet than be poor myself."
posted by stammer at 10:03 PM on April 9, 2008

We keep a few hundred pounds of non-perishable food around, plus lots of reserve bottled water. You should do the same if you're not already. If you don't have a lot of cash, do it gradually. If you buy extra canned and dried foods each week and get a rotation going, soon enough you'll have a nice cache of food. Though, if things get too far gone that extra little cushion might just prolong your misery. But it may help through a temporary nasty patch.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:17 PM on April 9, 2008

A lot of arguments about overpopulation seem to boil down to: "I would rather kill all or most of the poor people on the planet than be poor myself."

stammer, a lot of the supply-side arguments blaming distribution boil down to: "Rich people spend 20 dollars on lunch, so they must eat 20 times more than someone in a poorer country and cause a shortage for them."
posted by Brian B. at 10:34 PM on April 9, 2008

UK PM Gordon Brown writes to G8 urging action on food scarcity. However as seen in the Phillippines there is no problem with rice production only prices. There are different degrees here; the African type near starvation misery where there is nothing to buy even if there was money to buy it with, or the S. Asia type type problem where there are supplies but the poor don't have the resources to purchase at increased price levels hence riots.
posted by adamvasco at 12:37 AM on April 10, 2008

A lot of arguments about overpopulation seem to boil down to: "I would rather kill all or most of the poor people on the planet than be poor myself."

and

stammer, a lot of the supply-side arguments blaming distribution boil down to: "Rich people spend 20 dollars on lunch, so they must eat 20 times more than someone in a poorer country and cause a shortage for them."

i disagree with both of these statements.

as one who argues against over population i would like you to understand my position:

I would rather feed all or most of the poor people on the planet rather than watch them suffer and die.

and

Rich people, having exploited others to make their money, spend 20 dollars on lunch to demonstrate their superiority. This avoidable extravagance causes unnecessary suffering. (diversion of resources)

a sustainable population would make a world in which the opportunities for exploitation are fewer since people would be less dependent on the money makers for their survival.
posted by altman at 12:44 AM on April 10, 2008

the average North American uses at least five times as many resources as folks living in the developing world.

Actually it's more like fifty to a hundred times. The US uses five times what Hungary, Slovakia and Chile use. I know Americans probably. consider these country's part of the developing world. But they're not. Even most Western European countries use less than half. Although dirty, dirty little Luxembourg needs to try harder.
posted by rhymer at 1:58 AM on April 10, 2008

in the Philippines there is no problem with rice production only prices

The Filipino government right now cannot afford to acknowledge that there is not enough rice to go around, given the absolutely fundamental social importance that rice has to the Filipino population, so their statements should be taken with a pinch of salt - particularly given their rather shaky political situation. The measures mentioned in the article suggest the problem runs beyond distribution. The other problem is that the international rice market is extremely thin, and a number of these countries - including the Philippines - would not stand up well to a bad year of production.
posted by YouRebelScum at 2:02 AM on April 10, 2008

altman writes "Rich people, having exploited others to make their money, spend 20 dollars on lunch to demonstrate their superiority. This avoidable extravagance causes unnecessary suffering. (diversion of resources)"

Or maybe because the culture of their class dictates that this is the norm? Since the upper class is less likely to be obese (in the US at least), it's hard to argue that they're using more resouces just because they're paying more for their food.

If we're going to talk about practical use of resources, we should be talking about how many grams of vegetable protein are required to produce a gram of animal protein.
posted by mullingitover at 2:06 AM on April 10, 2008

mullingitover, He's arguing that Rich people either used oil transporting an avocado or used extra food resources raising cattle, i.e. he supports either local climate appropriate foods or vegetarianism. So yes you can basically ignore his argument if you don't support those causes.

I'm not sure I see a problem here. So the U.S. wants to sacrifice an export industry for fuel security. Fine, everyone else can lean food security, which can only mean one thing : semi-local production. Likewise, the countries banning food exports are just helping everyone else to regain food security.

Everyone will have more well rounded local production once the biofuel foolishness subsides.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:55 AM on April 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Many of the issues around food security being experienced right now are because countries such as Egypt import basic foods such as cereals and rice on the world market.

KokuRyu - I was just reading yesterday about riots in Egypt. A quick search turned up this news item, this (also on AP), and this blog entry (via reddit).
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 7:07 AM on April 10, 2008

Food redistribution is not the long-term solution. We know this to be true because -- you can use your brain here and play along at home -- organisms tend to multiply exponentially when given adequate energy supplies (food) while the food supply itself can only keep up with demand (multiply exponentially) when it's energy supplies (pesticides, fertilizers) also increases, perhaps exponentially as well.

Ergo, get the fuck over it.

No amount of lame-brain hand-wringing is going to change the fact that any enclosed system (the earth) can only support X number of people. So arguing over food redistribution is the wrong question. The right question is: how many people can the earth support in a manner worth aspiring to, given all the various limitations and constraints?

The argument over food redistribution is a short-term problem. It's a valid and necessary argument for the short-term, of course, but it fails to address the larger and more long-term problem of limiting population growth -- which is, after all, the original source of the problem.

For all those unable or unwilling to deal with long-term problems: get the fuck off my planet, because your incapacity to adequately cope with long-term problems IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM.
posted by bravelittletoaster at 8:21 AM on April 10, 2008

That was rude and I could have phrased it better without all the insults. I apologize.
posted by bravelittletoaster at 8:40 AM on April 10, 2008

Pretend your mom is watching.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:41 AM on April 10, 2008

Local production will help. But many places with the most extremely dense and vulnerable populations don't have the arable land nor the water for irrigation. Places like Indonesia and much of sub Saharan Africa.

The reason we got here is becuase we had cheap energy. That is what drove our food production efficiency. Fossil fuels to power combines, tractors, rail lines, ships, irrigation pumps and to make cheap fertilizer.

The reason we need bio fuels is to keep doing all the things modern efficient agriculture does to feed people. But fuel is no longer cheap. Which drives up the price of the food. Which motivates the need for alternate fuels and the profit for developing them. Which ALSO drives up the price of the food.

The rise in fuel costs necessitates the need for ever cheaper human labor to replace machinery and mechanical farming methods — human labor which is less efficient — so you have production problems and the inevitable human exploitation problems. Also the use of conventional or organic fertilizers are required to substitute the fossil fuel produced fertilizer (which the world completely relies on now) as those prices go up. Also much less efficient.

Obviously the cycle is not sustainable. Eventually modern efficient agriculture, the reason we have six billion people in the first place, starts to break down as energy costs go up. So people die. Slowly. In misery.

You can talk about over consumption - indeed a REAL problem - all you want but it too is merely a symptom of having too many people that have no economic value to the wealthy class in our system.

Sure the system is fucked. But even with the most egalitarian system we could devise where all wealth is equal (which is science fiction bullshit) we still have the problem of energy and the limits of the planet and having all these people with, in economic terms, little value. Basically population reduction and control is the only viable long term solution.

You HAVE to deal with population growth. Fewer people means more demand for human labor and higher value for humans and better economic opportunities.
posted by tkchrist at 9:42 AM on April 10, 2008

A lot of arguments about overpopulation seem to boil down to: "I would rather kill all or most of the poor people on the planet than be poor myself."

I object to the word "kill," but it does clearly boil down to: "All those poor people should stop reproducing." The overpopulation argument redirects attention from what we can do, to what they should do.

And the "... than be poor myself" is absolutely right. There is plenty of grain if we stop turning it into fuel. Or take water in California. The overpopulated developing world is not forcing California to defer to farmers' desire to waste water instead of requiring water-efficient farming methods, nor forcing it to use all its water to grow feed for livestock, nor forcing it to defer to silicon chip manufacturers' desire for water. Need water to drink, Californians? Shift your priorities from economic growth to "having water to drink." It's that simple.

And though I really like jeffburdges's idea, in theory, I'm not into the conseq uences of having that happen in a 5-10 year timespan -- human suffering, deforestation, carbon emissions, wildlife die-offs. If it went hand-in-hand with a decision to cut off imports to ourselves as well, the two might balance out and I'd reconsider the question.
posted by salvia at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2008

Via The Guardian, a handy Google map of food riots world wide.
posted by monospace at 10:29 AM on April 10, 2008

Shift your priorities from economic growth to "having water to drink." It's that simple.

Yep. The source of the problem isn't population per se, although I agree that we'd be better off with fewer people. The problem is unrealistic expectations and an unsustainable status-quo. For example, if "many places with the most extremely dense and vulnerable populations don't have the arable land nor the water for irrigation", then they shouldn't have an extremely dense population. Having far more people than your land can support is foolishness, no matter where it occurs (IMHO the US is one of the worst offenders in this regard, and our mistakes are likely to cause large-scale suffering in the US sooner rather than later).

We've painted ourselves into a corner -- the only pleasant solution is a radical redefinition of our cultural goals and values, emphasizing survivability and local cooperation and eschewing greed and waste. Unfortunately, I think this kind of cultural adjustment is a lot less likely than a century of starvation & disease die-offs and hunger-triggered wars. The haves will hold on to their stuff unto death... the death of all of the have-nots, that is.
posted by vorfeed at 12:28 PM on April 10, 2008

PEAK FOOD
posted by oaf at 1:01 PM on April 10, 2008

There is plenty of grain if we stop turning it into fuel.

Man. You guys don't get it. Our current ability to grow "plenty of grain" is not the problem. It's:

A) getting it where it's to be consumed in a timely, sustainable, and cost effective manner.

B) growing it in a sustainable manner.

For the last century we have relied on cheap fuel. Which we no longer have. Perhaps one day technology will create an energy source as plentiful and cheap as fossil fuels were. But I would not count on it for quite some time. Certainly not before misery on this planet spreads to epic proportions.

Or take water in California.

Water in California is also not the problem. It's water in Sub-Saharan Africa and places like that that are the problem.

However, eventually (soon - with in the next 100 years even with extreme conservation like you mentioned) water in California will essentially run dry if populations continue as predicted.

Shipping food across the planet is not a solution. People with the ability to grow food in sustainable and cost effective ways LOCALLY is the solution. And in some places there is not the water nor the arable land to do this and support the population levels.

Giving them food from places that can grow it, while a moral and reasonable thing to do SHORT TERM, it only makes things worse in the long term. It is an unpleasant fact. You are kidding your self if you think otherwise.

While I agree getting the west to live more sustainable life styles will certainly help. And something I have long argued. You will loose as much traction asking people to give up consumerist lifestyles as you will getting people to stop having too many children.

In the case of the former, the west running out of cheap fossil fuels will force most of us to cut back on wasteful living. In the case of the latter running out of fossil fuels will force people in the developing world to slowly starve to death and yet not immediately impede the root problem — population control. Though eventually it will. And in the worst possible way for everybody.

Any solution that does not involve family planning and population control will be doomed to fail. Indeed. It has failed. It is failing.

While you wait for the "system" and each individual to under go a massive compassion consciousness and lifestyle alteration, population contraction will be forced on the developing word while the current system undergoes either it's death-throes or it's alteration.

Or you can wait for the lifestyle alteration to be forced on the west by the unsustainable system and the shift from fossil fuels to "something else". Which will be no picnic.

Either way the fall out from either scenario (we are beginning to see now) will happen via continuing war and famine. And the more dense and overpopulated these regions of the world get the worse it will be for them.

Like it or not that is reality. It is way better to start encouraging population control in the developing world as much as we can now. Or, one day soon, it's going to be forced on these poor people by those same fucked up consumer capatlists that you all say are eating the planet. They have all the guns, all the food, and all the money. They will win.

And it's going to be ugly.

Population control now.
posted by tkchrist at 1:39 PM on April 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also, personally, I am not comfortable going to other countries and telling other people whether or not they should have babies. I view that as cultural imperialism. Who are we to say they ought to do something for their own good?

I have no problem telling people they should not have the maximum babies they can't afford to feed. Quality over quantity. It's a global consequence, and we all share the oceans, for example. Poor women will get more pressure to have children from churches or brutal husbands than they ever will get from intellectuals asking them politely. Personally, I don't like watching children starve, but I can see why a frustrated giver or religious person would feel validated by human suffering rather than by preventing it. However, I question their integrity when they seem so willing to then blame everyone else under the sun for it. Although I understand the denial that pro-population advocates are going through, faced with so much evidence, I just don't get the will or desire to ignore every other living thing on the planet in favor of their mysogyny. The silly arguments here justifying the recent doubling of human population in the face of so much pollution and global warming has religious cheese all over it.
posted by Brian B. at 7:08 PM on April 10, 2008

You know, this situation reminds me a bit of farm economics. Individually, it makes sense to grow as much, say, wheat as you can, because you can sell that much more. If everybody else follows suit, the supply of wheat goes way up and the price at which it sells drops through the floor, reducing everyone's profits and increasing the push for each individual to grow even more wheat so that they make up for the reduced price with more volume.

Having many children can enhance your family's prosperity, because you can all help one another, but if everybody has a large number of children, then you face resource shortages.

What makes sense for you as an individual can have disastrous consequences if everyone else is doing it too.
posted by oaf at 7:39 PM on April 10, 2008

Er, an example of farm economics.
posted by oaf at 7:40 PM on April 10, 2008

Amen tkchrist! We could cap food exports to countries without population control measures. Well, as you say, one can hope that population control will be the goal of O.F.E.C.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:31 AM on April 11, 2008

I have no problem telling people they should not have the maximum babies they can't afford to feed.

"Hey guys, you don't have enough food!" You think they need you to come over and give them that message?
posted by salvia at 10:11 AM on April 11, 2008

tkchrist, you don't think that if we made feeding the world our primary goal, and re-directed our use of fuel to that end, we couldn't do it? For quite some time to come? I do. I think the root of the globe's problem is not the number of mouths; it's our priorities. And what we've done to the climate.

Could we in the short term help starving people if we made it our "number one goal" Of course. For maybe thirty years. And then the problem will get worse as populations climb. So then what?

You don't get it.

How much will YOU and your children, and their children, sacrifice?

Do you understand what you really imply when you say "Make this a number-one priority?" Because I don't think you really do.

Okay. Eventually here are the choices you will have to make: First worlders;

No more personal vehicle ownership ownership.
No more casual air travel.
No more personal home ownership - everybody must live in cities in energy efficient shared communal dwellings.

Why? We have to feed the developing world and we don't think they should have to control their populations.

And guess what? Without pooulation controls even THAT sacrifice is stop gap. You understand the law of exponents, right? How population growth accelerates?

People say "well, as economies become first world population drops." Um. How many people can this planet afford to have living first world status?

First World MEANS consumer capitalism. That is the model we know that creates "prosperity." We don't have another model that works all that well yet. It's the one that generates the wealth to FEED starving poor people. And it's also the one that is killing the planet and keeping people poor. How long will it take to come up with something else? And what IS this something else. I'm all ears. Because I agree. this system SUCKS. But while you and I voluntarily reduce our consumption (and I have personally gone to great lengths to do so) the rest of the world is saying "FUCK IT! — I want an SUV and three color TV's and a two laptops and five iPods and a 6000 square foot house!" Because that is what is lifting India and China out of poverty, sustainable or not. And WE had it. So why can't they? Because suddenly WE feel guilty?

You don't feel comfortable telling developing world people how many kids they can have? Try telling them they cant have SUVs, too. Or that they will have to play with a new non-consumer economic model that we're not sure works all that well yet. Cultural imperialism. Indeed.

It doesn't matter. Barring the invention of fusion or dilithium crystals there is not enough cheap energy or resources to lift everybody to first world status or even put every body on some ideal near eual conumptive status - not at 7 billion people.

That means WE will have to drop in status more significantly than we could do voluntarily. And this process? It's called war.

So what is the next round of hard sacrifices you are dooming your children and their children to make? Because if you don't limit populations then your grandchildren will HAVE to make a choice between having some kind of life themselves and the clamoring starving masses of some poverty stricken hopeless part of the world they don't know. The world you helped make hopeless because of sentimental ideas about reproduction. It's harsh. But it is true. And you know they will choose themselves. People always do.

You are quite possibly forcing your children's children to be even worse Imperialists that you are. It's a Hobsons Choice.

If you keep feeding people without addressing the root problem - and it's too many people in areas where efficient food production has become untenable— they will just have more babies. And you will have to feed them. And on and on.

We no longer have the cheap energy to make this process sustainable. Please understand. Even if it became our Number One Priority the best we could hope for is a twenty maybe thirty year delay on even worse famine and war.

We, and the rest of the word, are victims of our own success — and excess.
posted by tkchrist at 7:26 PM on April 12, 2008

tkchrist, I heard you say you think I don't get it the first time. I think you don't get what I'm saying. That's the thing about a debate: people have different opinions. And do you really know what I do and don't get? You feel totally panicked about the population explosion and the "clamoring swarming masses," but whatever you fear isn't perpetuated by me. I'm not feeding anyone in the third world, as you claim I am. I'm not even saying "do nothing about population." Can we talk about this without getting personal?

What I am saying is that it's unfair to focus on what they should do, saying that they are the number one environmental problem, when we are the problem now. And it's misplaced and ineffective to focus on stopping some future problem rather than the current problem, when can't say for certain what problems will be happening in the future, but we can see that (again) we are the problem now. We should take the plank out of our own eye. Also, since we're not the right target audience for a discussion on overpopulation but we can control our consumption, we should talk more about that.

That means WE will have to drop in status more significantly than we could do voluntarily. And this process? It's called war.

A war is the process that will force first world-ers to lower their resource use, really? Who will attack us? Or are you talking wars over oil? Those already happen. The US is the aggressor there, and it has nothing to do with the population levels in Iraq. The "clamoring swarming masses" are not forcing us to reduce our oil use via wars. The US's involvement in those wars would go away if we managed to accomplish what I think we should focus on, limiting our energy use to what we can produce renewably and locally. Those wars are not going to be substantially worse or better based on the population of sub-Saharan Africa. Yes, we're competing with China & India over oil, but China already has population control, and India's fertility rate is rapidly falling to replacement levels (2.1) and is not up to the US or Europe, anyway. So, what war involving the US or Europe do we stop by focusing on overpopulation policies? Yes, there is a lot of violence related to resources, but it's not happening the way you describe.

I'm as much for localization as you & jeffburdges. Set limits on how much food we're going to export, if any, then let other countries determine their population policies and how to allocate their resources. But first, we should start by ending our imports -- coffee, sugar, oil, palm oil biofuels, beef, bananas -- so other countries have more arable land and water to work with. Our consumption (not their population) is the problem now.

Instead, it sounds like you think we should say, "hey guys, just FYI we're not going to have any more cheap grain to sell you in about 10 years because we're going to use it all for our cars. We don’t want to feel bad about this, though, so start reducing your population now. Here are some condoms. P.S. We’re not going to let you immigrate either. P.P.S. Sorry about totally screwing the climate." Or, "hey guys, we have this master plan for feeding everyone on earth and fueling our cars with food, but it only works if you stop reproducing so much?" No, we should balance our own books and let others decide how to balance theirs. And if we do decide we want to intervene, to stop some water-related genocide or whatever, then we should be doing so with a clear conscience that we're not just intervening because we want those resources or because we're the reason neither country has resources available.
posted by salvia at 1:24 PM on April 13, 2008

Also, since we're not the right target audience for a discussion on overpopulation but we can control our consumption, we should talk more about that.

If overpopulation is not addressed, controlling our consumption is incapable of doing anything more than delaying the inevitable (and delaying it will make it worse when the system does break). If the U.S. could reduce its consumption to zero tomorrow, it would ultimately make no difference if population growth doesn't level off.

Avoiding pain for unnaturally long periods of time will result in worse pain later. Just ask Ben Bernanke.
posted by oaf at 4:52 AM on April 15, 2008

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