For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
I find it hard to imagine any die off due to starvation in the forceable future as long as there is an organized/peaceful society we will have more than enough energy to feed 8billion+. This is why I think this:
there was about a billion people in China in 2000 when they used about 3million barrels a day of domestic oil production and did not import significant quantities of food. You would only need about a third of our current supply of oil to maintain everyone at the 2000 chinese level of oil consumption. To reach that level in twenty years depletion has to occur at 5% to 6% a year starting immediately. Not a very likely scenario in my books when the US has demonstrated a very mature oil region is capable of slowing depletion down to 1% to 2% a year.
I'm sure others around here have looked at these numbers as well, so why the great pessimism about the near future? How exactly do you believe people are going to die in such great numbers? It's even hard to imagine organized war between states knocking back the population significantly (without going nuclear). That leaves either the Mad Max scenario or genocide doesn't it? Mad Max is very unlikely while we still have food to eat. Genocide hasn't be practiced on that large a scale since Timur.
Joined: Sep 18, 2004 Posts: 58 Location: Australia
Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 6:27 am Post subject:
Who knows?
If there's a global war for resources and it goes nuclear and includes bioweapons, then extinction is possible.
If one looks at factors like starvation, well it can take as little as 2 weeks and people's kidneys pack it in, add in their immune system failing and they'll get diseases and drop like flies. Quite possible if there's sustained droughts, heatwaves, floods, cold snaps or hurricanes/cyclones knocking off crops -- made worse by climate change. If the food can't be moved due to oil shortages, well it won't be good. This goes for water quality too. That's getting scarce.
We're a fairly frail life form if the basics can't be had and every day the biosphere is shrinking. Even if there wasn't any oil shortage ever to come, it's all on borrowed time.
This is why I think this: there was about a billion people in China in 2000 when they used about 3million barrels a day of domestic oil production and did not import significant quantities of food.
Interesting argument, but why do you only count 3mbd of domestic oil production, rather than total consumption of 5mbd (as given in BP stats)?
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1416 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:02 am Post subject:
Quote:
Interesting argument, but why do you only count 3mbd of domestic oil production, rather than total consumption of 5mbd (as given in BP stats)?
Thats what I get for being lazy and not fact checking. I was relying on my faulty memory. The argument still holds in general just the facts are fuzier.
Joined: Aug 16, 2004 Posts: 7 Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 11:36 pm Post subject:
I voted for Less than 2, because thats the kind of negative person I am.
And a population of less than 2 means one person will survive. I plan to be that person. :D
I find it hard to imagine any die off due to starvation in the forceable future as long as there is an organized/peaceful society we will have more than enough energy to feed 8billion+. This is why I think this:
I must suggest Nero that you have made a seriously flawed assumption in your argument.
China produces food at a given food/oil ratio.
You assume that anyone, anywhere, could produce food at the same food/oil ratio should the need arise.
This is very much mistaken.
The ratio of food produced to oil consumed is dependent upon the infrastructure used to produce it.
For example, farm animals such as oxen displace oil is less developed countries, yet following the onset of peak oil, industrial countries cannot simply adopt usage of farm animals for labour.
A second example is the social capital in the form of agricultural knowledge. The knowledge of the skill and practices of farming. Without a sufficient ratio of the population with this knowledge, the efficiency of food production will be lessened as oil is displaced.
A third example worth considering is the transport infrastructure used to move the food to where it is needed. This will vary between country. The efficiency of food production will vary in proportion to the dependence of that countries food transport infrastructure upon oil.
If you were to look around, I am in little doubt that you would find poorer countries than China that are self-sufficient in food and yet use even less oil/food produced. China's numbers are probably not the best and are certainly not the worst. The existence of one set of numbers in one context (with one given infrastructure) does not imply that it is possible for anyone in any circumstance to produce food with the same oil efficiency.
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:20 am Post subject:
I have found some stats on the DTI UK website that might give some reassurance on the 'die off' debate(not a lot , but maybe some!)
Basically I looked how many barrels of oil per year it takes to produce all of the UK's food and added this to all of the oil consumed by industrial and service sector transport. The numbers for 2002 broke down as follows:
Food and Drink production(including alcohol wahooo! )
27 million barrels of oil at 70% self sufficient = 38 million barrels at 100% sufficiency.
All industrial and service sector transport
147 million barrels per year
Total
185 million barrels per year which is 506,849 barrels per day which is 30% of UK oil consumption.
Obviously this number is a bit inflated because it includes all of the oil required to transport all goods and not just food, also it assumes that your average UK citizen continues to be a fat git and eat 3500 calories per day instead of 2500 for a man and 1500 for a woman! It also assumes that there is no decrease in consumption of meat which would further reduce oil consumption as this is hugely calorie inefficient.
If world oil production in 2050 is one third of todays levels, and assuming the UK at least gets its share, the UK should be able to feed her people. If you then factor in any limited amounts of methanol , natural gas, hydrogen, bio diesal, coal derived fuels or electric you could reduce this oil requirement even further.
So in short, if we manage the situation, stop mass immigration(which would allow UK population to drop to 40 million by 2050-2060 as birth rate is only 1.6!) then even the crowded UK can feed itself for a long time to come!
beyond 2050 I dont care as I will be 76 and will probably be dead !
Joined: Sep 28, 2004 Posts: 216 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:04 am Post subject:
Arg. I voted in haste and for the wrong thing. (I said "less than 2 billion.") But I was thinking of the world's human population in 2100, not 20 years after Peak Oil (or 2020). The world population in 2020 will probably be around 7.5 billion. The population might peak around 2045-2055, about 50 years after Peak Oil.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1416 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:20 pm Post subject:
Soft_Landing wrote:
I must suggest Nero that you have made a seriously flawed assumption in your argument.
Soft_Landing,
You are absolutely right my argument does use the assumption that the Chinese food/oil ratio is possible in other parts of the world. I don't have any particular information or expertise on this so I relied on a large safety factor. The safety factor being that China isn't the poorest country in the world and not nearly all of it's oil is used for agriculture. As you point out I could have used other countries where the food/oil ratio is even higher. China being a large country self sufficient in both oil and food that wasn't near starvation levels (ie a large safetly factor built in) was a particularly apropriate comparison. I don't believe that it would be necessary to turn to a pre industrial form of agriculture to increase the food to oil ratio in the industrialized countries to a similar level. We have so much flab in the form of discretionary fuel use that can be removed. On top of that I do not doubt that there are just as many possible fuel efficiency improvements on the farm as in the city.
In the end my post did not attempt to rigorously prove that we can feed 9 billion people but to lead people to consider exactly what would be required to lead to a situation where starvation was the cause of a dieoff. It is hard to imagine it occuring in our lifetime as long as there is a stable organized society in which the farmer is able to produce food in peace.
I believe it is going to be about 6 billion.
In some countries there will be a mass die off but most countries will have an
1 children per family strict policy.Some other countries will not be effected.
USA,Japan,EU
Why ? Organic farming,biotech, lots of money to buy food , "liberation of land for food from poorer countries",low population, "immigrants soul liberation" and other policies.
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