Joined: Sep 03, 2005 Posts: 74 Location: Germany, State M-V
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
Are there any good maps of the USA which are showing the fertile land and additionally e.g. the arable land?
And in relation perhaps India. I would like to know where it would be good to plant e.g. Jatropha.
Then i once discovered a graph posted in a thread here in the forum showing the disappearance of forest area in the USA at three different years: First was about 1700 or 1750, the second was about 1900 and the third was at 1950 or something.
I can't remember if it was in "Energy News" or in "Environmental topics" and it is difficult to search for graphs if you don't remember any important word which was used in the the thread.
Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 358 Location: Holland, United Kingdom (of the seven Netherlands)
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 4:29 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
Jupidu wrote:
I would like to know where it would be good to plant e.g. Jatropha.
That depends on what you want. Jatropha doesn't need the best soils, but if you want a good yield, then good soil (expensive land) will help. There is still research going on to see how well Jatropha will do on marginal lands.
Joined: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 3589 Location: Minniesotuh
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
Food Crisis May Divide Middle East's Oil Haves, Have-Nots
By Glen Carey and Ayesha Daya
``Our entire food system is broken,'' said Carin Smaller, an agricultural trade analyst in Geneva for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. ``Some countries have to take unilateral measures now because there is not enough food on the world market. It's going to intensify the crisis.'' ...
Not Enough Food on the World Market _________________ "RRrrruuuunnnn!!!" ~Apocalypto
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1142 Location: Seattle
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
EnergyUnlimited wrote:
OilFinder2 wrote:
I just noticed that the Chicago Board of Trade recently updated their charts on production of corn, wheat and soybeans.
Oilfinder,
I note, your graphs show detailed data of certain grain production including year 2008.
How so?
I think some of them are for the year 2007-2008, because some crops are grown in the winter (e.g. winter wheat) and other nations are in the tropics and/or the southern hemisphere and so their "summer" overlaps 2007 and 2008. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
1. Our Population.
In the next 20 years the population that VCH serves will grow rapidly.
The most rapid increase in growth comes from our senior population.
[...]
Is that the best you can do???
Here is the difference between you and me OF2. I can admit that I screwed up on the graph. "I screwed up." But you know what is still true? The global population grew by 300k today. And it will again tomorrow and the day after that.
You can find all of the minor mistakes you want, you still refuse to deal with the important points. Faith in human ingenuity is not an argument it is a faith. It is like saying that Jesus will not let white people die of hunger; a short-sighted, unhelpful, ignorant statement of faith that is divorced even from the best thinking within a tradition (humanism in the first place, Christianity in the second).
So I hope you felt good catching my mistake. Someday you will have to learn how to address your own. _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Kenneth Galbraith
Joined: Apr 05, 2005 Posts: 1627 Location: Springsteen Country (NJ)
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 9:58 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
OilFinder2 wrote:
In other words, world coarse grain production has outpaced world population growth since 1968.
Let's just assume that's a true statement. That condition begs two questions I'd like you to answer:
1. Do you think that trend can continue for the foreseeable future?
2. Do you think ever increasing world population is a good thing, or do you think it should stop at some point? _________________ Joe P. United Political Debate
"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1142 Location: Seattle
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
joewp wrote:
OilFinder2 wrote:
In other words, world coarse grain production has outpaced world population growth since 1968.
Let's just assume that's a true statement. That condition begs two questions I'd like you to answer:
1. Do you think that trend can continue for the foreseeable future?
2. Do you think ever increasing world population is a good thing, or do you think it should stop at some point?
1. Don't see why not. World population is only projected to increase by about 3 billion (~1/3 increase) before topping off at around 9-10 billion somewhere around 2070. We've already increased world coarse grain production by 98% over the past 40 years, so I don't see why increasing it by another ~33% or so over the next 60-70 years should be a particularly hard problem to solve.
2. Do I, personally, "want" world population to grow indefinitely to, say, 20 billion, or more? No, not particularly. But the 9-10 billion peak projected for 2070 doesn't seem too onerous or undesirable to me. 40 years ago, many people were saying that a doubling of world population around the turn of the century would result in some horrific dystopia, but it hasn't turned out that bad at all, IMO. Another 1/3 or so probably won't be that bad, either. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
Joined: Apr 05, 2005 Posts: 1627 Location: Springsteen Country (NJ)
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
It's not you don't see why not, it's you won't see why not. The reality is food production isn't keeping up now, never mind in the future through 2070. And once global oil depletion kicks in, the production of food will decline too. You just don't want to see that.
The doubling in the last 40 years has resulted in increased CO2 concentrations that are warming the planet, the loss of between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife and the loss of quality of life for many of the planet's residents. Another 1/2 (not 1/3) or so in the next 60 years isn't a prospect I'd want to subject my kids to.
But you keep thinking the way you do and tell as many people about it as you can. The more people you can keep in the dark the better. _________________ Joe P. United Political Debate
"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1142 Location: Seattle
Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
joewp wrote:
It's not you don't see why not, it's you won't see why not. The reality is food production isn't keeping up now,
Wow, that was funny. I just got through showing you, with cold, hard statistical facts, that world coarse grain production has outpaced world population growth over the past 40 years, and now you still come back and tell me that it isn't "keeping up."
joewp wrote:
never mind in the future through 2070. And once global oil depletion kicks in, the production of food will decline too. You just don't want to see that.
What you don't want to see is that, even if you were right about global oil depletion (which of course you aren't), fossil fuels aren't even necessary for modern agricultural production.
joewp wrote:
Another 1/2 (not 1/3) or so in the next 60 years isn't a prospect I'd want to subject my kids to.
Yes, it's an additional 1/3, not 1/2. With a current population of 6.6 billion, the UN projects it to top off at about 9-10 billion. That's an additional 3 billion, or about 1/3 (less, technically).
joewp wrote:
The doubling in the last 40 years has resulted in increased CO2 concentrations that are warming the planet, the loss of between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife and the loss of quality of life for many of the planet's residents . . . But you keep thinking the way you do and tell as many people about it as you can. The more people you can keep in the dark the better.
You don't seem to grasp the fact that you have no choice but to accept these additional 1/3 people. If I suddenly changed my mind and decided that peakers like you were right, that would not make those additional 3 billion people go away. There is no choice in the matter, and these people will want to be fed, so we have little choice but to try to feed them. You cannot make them go away just by adopting some alternative belief. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:29 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
wisconsin_cur wrote:
The global population grew by 300k today. And it will again tomorrow and the day after that.
Not quite. ~350k births and ~150k deaths with a net of ~200k people per day.
wisconsin_cur wrote:
You can find all of the minor mistakes you want, you still refuse to deal with the important points. Faith in human ingenuity is not an argument it is a faith. It is like saying that Jesus will not let white people die of hunger; a short-sighted, unhelpful, ignorant statement of faith that is divorced even from the best thinking within a tradition (humanism in the first place, Christianity in the second).
I don't think OF, or anyone who si serious about this, has that kind of outlook, just that according to projections regarding population growth it won't be as large of a problem as most assume. For instance, in another thread, a poster put forth how insane 6% growth yoy in population would be, but we haven't seen that for who knows how long, and are at a smidgen over 1% per year and appear to be declining in the long term.
Yes we will have problems in the future, but it looks like, as usual, getting food to people and stabilizing local regions are key to stabilizing population growth and dealing these sorts of things. Globally, we produce more than enough food to feed a substantially larger population, it's just that we waste enough to limit that ability via livestock/fuel, and in the face of an unstable life, surprisingly enough (not really) in the wake of colonial rule, population growth in those areas will be a problem until things stabilize. _________________
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 2:13 am Post subject: Re: The Spreading Food Crisis Thread (U.S. & World)
yesplease wrote:
...
Globally, we produce more than enough food to feed a substantially larger population,
That is technically true. but...
yesplease wrote:
...
it's just that we waste enough to limit that ability via livestock/fuel, and in the face of an unstable life,....
That will not change. Joe Sixpack is not going to give up on eating grain fed cattle meat and the government is not going to get smart and put a stop to corn ethanol, at least not now. I remember way back the UN population statistics predicted a peak of 10 Billion people. However the most recent reports seem to point to a peak of 9 B. However that's not even taking into account the massive rise in food prices recently. I think 5 years from now when a new demographic study is made the number will be 8 Billion people....and it will go downhill from there.
The "reason" will be b/c of decreased fertility rates due to malnutrition in the 3rd world. That's how die-off works.
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