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This is an honest question: How does creating more food prevent these problems? Won't populations grow enough to consume all available food? Haven't populati

by awt 17y ago

This is an honest question: How does creating more food prevent these problems? Won't populations grow enough to consume all available food? Haven't populations in 3rd world countries exploded since the "green revolution"?

hughprime 17y ago
I think the assumption is that eventually the world's population will stabilize as third-world folks start breeding at bare replacement levels like rich folks do. If we (as a species) can keep producing enough food right up to that point, then we're fine. The alternative is that we hit the point where a massive worldwide famine (like, hundreds of millions of deaths) is required to get things back in balance. I'd rather avoid this if at all possible. As far as I know, ever since the discovery of agriculture we as a species have never really been at the point (except on local and temporary scales) where the population was limited by available food. Reaching that point would get extremely ugly.
- immad 17y ago
  Why does it have to be a "massive worldwide famine" rather than a general slow starvation that forces an overall balance? I get why some human issues lead to catastrophe like, global warming, but I never get why all issues will lead to catastrophes rather than gradual equilibrium.
  - hughprime 17y ago
    Well, if the world were a simple mathematical model it might go as follows: there's enough food to feed ten billion people, so one day a baby is born taking us up to ten billion and one and oops -- somebody dies of starvation. From that moment on, the death rate due to starvation is equal to the birth rate minus the death rate due to non-starvation causes, and that's not _too_ bad. In practice, though, that's not the way it's gonna happen. For starters, we have a bunch of food stored up, so the population will overshoot the limit by eating stored food, maybe for a bunch of years, enabling the population to get way above what it should. (I'm not just talking about canned beans here -- living animals are "stored food" too). Secondly, food production varies from year to year -- in a good year we might be able to feed eleven billion, and in a bad year only nine... that's gonna cause some problems when a bad year rolls around. Finally, a world where everybody has _just_ enough food to not die is still a pretty miserable and malnourished world... plus you've got the whole "hungry people with guns vs hungry people without guns" problem which leads to a whole bunch of other bad stuff happening. Anyway, I hope that has been enough to convince you that awful things happen anytime you get a population anywhere near the very fuzzy and variable limit which is the maximum agriculturally sustainable population.
socratees 17y ago
That will NEVER happen. We already have enough food to feed 7 billion people over multiple years. The problem we face now is more related to "distribution of food to the right people" rather than production. What if the population explodes? Earth can sustain more human beings than you can imagine. The only thing we need to be careful about is polluting the atmosphere.
- webwright 17y ago
  Really? So groundwater, soil, wild fish populations, etc. All that's going to keep scaling nicely? http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ucs-statement.txt http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ucs-statement.tx...
  - petercooper 17y ago
    It doesn't need to as long as technology keeps scaling. Pointing out that groundwater and soil aren't going to scale reminds me of the people who freaked out over the scalability of x86 in the mid 90s - we're an ingenious bunch, we find solutions. Genetically modified meat grown in vats, compact nutrition rich superfoods/tablets.. there are all sorts of technologically possible creations around the corner.
    - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
      The dramatic increases in per acre yields over the past fifty years are closely tied to equally dramatic increases in per acre energy inputs over the same period. The Green Revolution amounts to the replacement of sunlight with hydrocarbons as the main fuel of food production. Global oil production has now peaked and will slide, sooner or later, into permanent and progressive decline year-over-year. When that happens, all the blue-sky technology in the world won't keep food production rates increasing.
      - petercooper 17y ago
        Global oil production has now peaked and will slide, sooner or later, into permanent and progressive decline year-over-year. When that happens, all the blue-sky technology in the world won't keep food production rates increasing. Hydrocarbons aren't the only source of energy into the future. Your complaint is like noting that a shortage of horses in the 1880s would lead to a lack of future mobility. When resources fail, you change the rules of the game beyond what can be imagined at the time. Technology has always and will always tackle our scaling problems. At least, if a few thousand years of such is good precedent.
ghshephard 17y ago
It turns out that countries with better crop yields per person, require fewer people, resulting in reduced population.
- ramidarigaz 17y ago
  Citation?
  - ghshephard 17y ago
    Citation: http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/The_Story_of_Wheat.htm http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/The_Story_of_Wheat.h... In particular: "Demographers, who had been watching the exponential rise with alarm, now forecast that the population will peak below ten billion—ten gigapeople—not long after 2050. Such a low forecast would have been unthinkable just two decades ago. Already, in developing countries, the number of children born per woman has fallen from six to three in 50 years. It will have reached replacement-level fertility (where deaths equal births) by 2035. This is an extraordinary development, unexpected, undeserved—and apparently unnatural. Human beings may be the only creatures that have fewer babies when they are better fed. "
    - ramidarigaz 17y ago
      Thanks. I was a bit skeptical, but thats an interesting read.
petercooper 17y ago
More food leads to better health (up to a limit), leading to lower mortality and increased wealth, which means fewer children born. Note that the countries with the most ready access to food have the lowest local population growth. Couple this with improving sexual education (as tends to occur in wealthier countries) and you end up with population growth going through the floor, not up.

by awt 17y ago

hughprime 17y ago

I think the assumption is that eventually the world's population will stabilize as third-world folks start breeding at bare replacement levels like rich folks do. If we (as a species) can keep producing enough food right up to that point, then we're fine. The alternative is that we hit the point where a massive worldwide famine (like, hundreds of millions of deaths) is required to get things back in balance. I'd rather avoid this if at all possible. As far as I know, ever since the discovery of agriculture we as a species have never really been at the point (except on local and temporary scales) where the population was limited by available food. Reaching that point would get extremely ugly.

immad 17y ago
Why does it have to be a "massive worldwide famine" rather than a general slow starvation that forces an overall balance? I get why some human issues lead to catastrophe like, global warming, but I never get why all issues will lead to catastrophes rather than gradual equilibrium.
- hughprime 17y ago
  Well, if the world were a simple mathematical model it might go as follows: there's enough food to feed ten billion people, so one day a baby is born taking us up to ten billion and one and oops -- somebody dies of starvation. From that moment on, the death rate due to starvation is equal to the birth rate minus the death rate due to non-starvation causes, and that's not _too_ bad. In practice, though, that's not the way it's gonna happen. For starters, we have a bunch of food stored up, so the population will overshoot the limit by eating stored food, maybe for a bunch of years, enabling the population to get way above what it should. (I'm not just talking about canned beans here -- living animals are "stored food" too). Secondly, food production varies from year to year -- in a good year we might be able to feed eleven billion, and in a bad year only nine... that's gonna cause some problems when a bad year rolls around. Finally, a world where everybody has _just_ enough food to not die is still a pretty miserable and malnourished world... plus you've got the whole "hungry people with guns vs hungry people without guns" problem which leads to a whole bunch of other bad stuff happening. Anyway, I hope that has been enough to convince you that awful things happen anytime you get a population anywhere near the very fuzzy and variable limit which is the maximum agriculturally sustainable population.

socratees 17y ago

That will NEVER happen. We already have enough food to feed 7 billion people over multiple years. The problem we face now is more related to "distribution of food to the right people" rather than production. What if the population explodes? Earth can sustain more human beings than you can imagine. The only thing we need to be careful about is polluting the atmosphere.

webwright 17y ago
Really? So groundwater, soil, wild fish populations, etc. All that's going to keep scaling nicely? http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ucs-statement.txt http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ucs-statement.tx...
- petercooper 17y ago
  It doesn't need to as long as technology keeps scaling. Pointing out that groundwater and soil aren't going to scale reminds me of the people who freaked out over the scalability of x86 in the mid 90s - we're an ingenious bunch, we find solutions. Genetically modified meat grown in vats, compact nutrition rich superfoods/tablets.. there are all sorts of technologically possible creations around the corner.
  - RyanMcGreal 17y ago
    The dramatic increases in per acre yields over the past fifty years are closely tied to equally dramatic increases in per acre energy inputs over the same period. The Green Revolution amounts to the replacement of sunlight with hydrocarbons as the main fuel of food production. Global oil production has now peaked and will slide, sooner or later, into permanent and progressive decline year-over-year. When that happens, all the blue-sky technology in the world won't keep food production rates increasing.
    - petercooper 17y ago
      Global oil production has now peaked and will slide, sooner or later, into permanent and progressive decline year-over-year. When that happens, all the blue-sky technology in the world won't keep food production rates increasing. Hydrocarbons aren't the only source of energy into the future. Your complaint is like noting that a shortage of horses in the 1880s would lead to a lack of future mobility. When resources fail, you change the rules of the game beyond what can be imagined at the time. Technology has always and will always tackle our scaling problems. At least, if a few thousand years of such is good precedent.

ghshephard 17y ago

It turns out that countries with better crop yields per person, require fewer people, resulting in reduced population.

ramidarigaz 17y ago
Citation?
- ghshephard 17y ago
  Citation: http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/The_Story_of_Wheat.htm http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/The_Story_of_Wheat.h... In particular: "Demographers, who had been watching the exponential rise with alarm, now forecast that the population will peak below ten billion—ten gigapeople—not long after 2050. Such a low forecast would have been unthinkable just two decades ago. Already, in developing countries, the number of children born per woman has fallen from six to three in 50 years. It will have reached replacement-level fertility (where deaths equal births) by 2035. This is an extraordinary development, unexpected, undeserved—and apparently unnatural. Human beings may be the only creatures that have fewer babies when they are better fed. "
  - ramidarigaz 17y ago
    Thanks. I was a bit skeptical, but thats an interesting read.

petercooper 17y ago

More food leads to better health (up to a limit), leading to lower mortality and increased wealth, which means fewer children born. Note that the countries with the most ready access to food have the lowest local population growth. Couple this with improving sexual education (as tends to occur in wealthier countries) and you end up with population growth going through the floor, not up.