Wordwide grain shortage

[kwikdriver]

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Rice climbed to a record for a fourth day as the Philippines, the biggest importer, announced plans to buy 1 million tons and some of the world's largest exporters cut sales to ensure they can feed their own people.

Rice, the staple food for half the world, rose as much as 2.9 percent to $21.60 per 100 pounds in Chicago, before paring gains. The price has doubled in the past year. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo announced two rice tenders today and pledged to crack down on hoarding. Anyone found guilty of ``stealing rice from the people'' will be jailed, she said.

``We're in for a tough time,'' Roland Jansen, chief executive officer of Pfaffikon, Switzerland-based Mother Earth Investments AG, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television from Zurich today. Unless prices decline, ``you will have huge problems of daily nutrition for half the planet.'' Mother Earth holds about 4 percent of its $100 million funds in the grain.

China, Egypt, Vietnam and India, accounting for more than a third of global rice exports, curbed sales this year to protect domestic stockpiles. The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face ``social unrest'' after food and energy costs increased for six consecutive years.

The Philippines, which imports about 15 percent of its rice, is tightening controls over domestic sales and buying more overseas. The government's rice tenders are in April and May.

``I am leading the charge'' against any officials and businessmen who divert supplies or distort the price of the staple food, Arroyo said in a televised speech today.

``The need to avert social tensions from high food prices'' has made ``food sufficiency even more urgent,'' Abah Ofon, a soft-commodities analyst with Standard Chartered Plc, said in a report yesterday. Food importers may not be able to meet their needs because of the export limits, Dubai-based Ofon said.

Philippines Imports

The Philippines may raise imports of milled rice by as much as 42 percent to 2.7 million tons this year from 1.9 million tons in 2007 to discourage speculation by local traders, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said March 26.

The price of rice from Thailand, the world's biggest supplier, may climb another 25 percent this year, said exports including Vichai Sriprasert, former president of the Thai Rice Exporters' Association.

Rice seeding in the U.S. is behind last year's pace because of flooding in growing regions, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday. Farmers in six states have planted 11 percent of their crop versus 21 percent a year earlier. In Arkansas, the biggest rice-producing state, about 2 percent of the crop was seeded, compared with 21 percent.

Commodity prices are posting their seventh year of gains. The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials more than tripled in the past six years as global demand led by China outpaced supplies of metals and crops.

Global Inflation

Rising food prices are fueling global inflation. Wholesale costs in India rose 7 percent in the week ended March 22, the fastest pace in more than three years.

Soaring prices could lead to increased unrest, such as in Haiti recently, the United Nations said in a report yesterday.

Four people died in two days of rioting last week over food prices in Haiti, the western hemisphere's poorest country, the organization said on its Web site.

``What we see in Haiti is what we're seeing in many of our operations around the world -- rising prices that mean less food for the hungry,'' the report said, citing the United Nations World Food Program's executive director Josette Sheeran.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal have also experienced unrest in the last several weeks related to food and fuel prices, according to the report.

Half Portions

``We are starting to see conflict and civil unrest,'' Francisco Blanch, who heads global commodities research in London at Merrill Lynch & Co., said in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. ``Central banks will have to start taking measures to slow the inflation pain down.''

The Philippine government had asked fast-food chains and restaurants to serve half portions of rice to cut waste, farm secretary Yap said on March 19.

Wheat traded in Chicago has more than tripled in three years, also threatening social stability. As many as seven people died from exhaustion or in fights while waiting in bread lines in Egypt, according to police reports. Pakistan sent troops to guard flour mills in January.

Standard Chartered yesterday increased its 2008 rice forecast by 12 percent to $18.50 per 100 pounds. Rice futures for May delivery ended the day lower, dropping 52 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $20.48 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade. The price has jumped 48 percent this year.

Stockpiles are at their lowest since the 1980s and demand for the grain has gained 40 percent in two decades, Ofon said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahRifIz3hjh0&refer=home

[LC FP]

China, Egypt, Vietnam and India, accounting for more than a third of global rice exports, curbed sales this year to protect domestic stockpiles.
We've been proving Thomas Malthus wrong for over a century, but eventually he'll be right. Maybe this is the time?

[eryalen]

They can have my share.

[1000times]

They can have my share.
What do you eat, then? Nothing but grass-fed beef? Wild fish and game?

Because if you're buying beef, pork, and chicken at the supermarket, like most people in the first world, you ARE eating grain. Lots of grain. You're just turning the majority of it into cow-, pig- and chickenshit before the rest of it reaches your table.

[kwikdriver]

We've been proving Thomas Malthus wrong for over a century, but eventually he'll be right. Maybe this is the time?

Funny, I thought of Malthus and chicken little when I first read about this as well. But the more I look into it, the more concerned I become. Apparently a contributing factor is global warming, which isn't going away soon, and in fact, is likely to get worse. Then you have the whole biofuels thing, which increases demand for grains. On the other side, a major contributing factor seems to be growing wealth in a few countries, like China, increasing demand for food, which suggests we aren't really at a crisis stage yet -- it just means the Chinese are getting fatter, but starving the Africans some to do it, ie, there's still enough food to go around, we just have to do a better job of allocating it.

Still, it's a reminder of something. If you look back over the past 1000 years, the biggest development, to me, isn't the printing press, or the atomic bomb, but the notion, which we in the West have come to take for granted, that starvation isn't just around the corner. People can imagine being homeless, they can imagine dying because of a lack of health insurance or healthcare -- all sorts of things, but nobody worries about starving. Yet historically, existence was largely about nothing more than getting enough to eat. And now that problem could be (excuse the pun) back on the table. Certainly, in countries like the Philippines, it's getting close. How odd, by the way, to be in a country where the biggest worry with regards to food is how not to eat too much of it, when they are having riots over handfuls of rice elsewhere. Suddenly being overweight doesn't seem so bad.

[LC FP]

On the other side, a major contributing factor seems to be growing wealth in a few countries, like China, increasing demand for food, which suggests we aren't really at a crisis stage yet
Kwik, not sure I'm understanding your point here.

The population of the planet is currently 6+ billion. Population doubling times have been decreasing for 10,000 years and we're scheduled to double again in 35-40 years. That's a lot of people to feed.

[LCivility]

Well, in this case, it is time to actively promote higher education for women in China and India.

Tho this seems like a non-sequiter, some people have equated the dramatic drop in reproductive rates in the west to women' education. Educated women go into the paid work force, and have fewer children so that those children will have more opportunities for education.

[eryalen]

What do you eat, then? Nothing but grass-fed beef? Wild fish and game?
.
Pretty much, plus free range chicken and eggs, nuts, cheese and lots of veggies.

[Nae]

makes the future look scary to think about it when food is going to be short, look at what could happen if bees disapear completely, and alarmingly bees are dying off in record numbers

[tie_guy]

Most of the general population isn't picky about what they eat. So if they aren't eating grain then they are eating something else. In other words, if the price of grain and grain feed beef goes up then the price of grass fed beef will go up to match. Even if you don't eat grain at all in any form, an increase in grain prices will still affect you!

[eryalen]

Most of the general population isn't picky about what they eat. So if they aren't eating grain then they are eating something else. In other words, if the price of grain and grain feed beef goes up then the price of grass fed beef will go up to match. Even if you don't eat grain at all in any form, an increase in grain prices will still affect you!
I already pay three times the price for grass fed beef. It may come to the point where I will have to grow my own.

[ruthla]

Most of the general population isn't picky about what they eat. So if they aren't eating grain then they are eating something else. In other words, if the price of grain and grain feed beef goes up then the price of grass fed beef will go up to match. Even if you don't eat grain at all in any form, an increase in grain prices will still affect you!
I'm not so sure about this. Beef have been fed grains because it's been a cheap way to "fatten them up." When grains get too expensive, farmers may switch to grass-fed animals. The grass-fed animals may actually come DOWN in price due to increased supply.

There's no question that what's happeneing to the poorest people is absolutely tragic- when grains are all you have to eat, and then you can't afford those grains, people are going to starve. :(

But I'm not so sure this is going to translate into higher prices for ALL foods. And I'm also not convinced it's altogether a bad thing. If grains lose their "cheapness" people might stop relying on them so much, and it may become easier and cheaper to eat a grain-free diet than it is now. (And here I'm talking about in the USA, Canada, Europe, and other "developed" areas- not the above-mentioned people in poverty who are barely making it right now.)

[HappyLC]

It's not so much a grain shortage as a price increase. Here's a slightly less hysterical view of the situation -

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p01s02-woap.html


Analysts note that the current shortage isn’t hitting as many people as hard as past shortages. As incomes rise worldwide, food is a smaller portion of the family budget. “Governments have tried to protect domestic prices from fluctuations in international prices, and they have succeeded in the past,” says Sumiter Broca, a policy analyst at the FAO. “The key point is that the proportion of income spent on food is much lower than it used to be, so that provides a cushion. The situation is not as serious as it was in 1974.”

Citizens of Nepal and India now spend about 35 to 40 percent of income on food, down from about 70 to 80 percent in the early 1970s, Mr. Broca says. In developing countries, food costs eat up only about 7 percent of household incomes.

The FAO expects food prices to stabilize and eventually drop as farmers plant more grains. That’s already starting to happen with wheat and corn. But the next few years could be difficult.

[Nae]

I read in the news( msn videos) today people in haiti are starving so badly that some have started combing butter ,water and dirt together to make cookie like meals

[frankly]

I read in the news( msn videos) today people in haiti are starving so badly that some have started combing butter ,water and dirt together to make cookie like meals

There is a good link about it here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin_2.html

[kwikdriver]

It's not so much a grain shortage as a price increase. Here's a slightly less hysterical view of the situation -

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p01s02-woap.html

Prices don't just randomly increase. In fact, a few quotes from your own article explain why these prices increased, and it's grain shortages:

Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.

In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop.

In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.

Surging oil prices (in turn, boosting fertilizer and transport costs) combined with a drop in production due to droughts in Australia and the Ukraine have helped to drain global food stocks.

While rice production is rising, consumption is growing faster. The US Department of Agriculture forecast rice stocks to fall to their lowest level since the mid-1970s, and wheat stocks are projected to hit their lowest point since 1946, the year after World War II ended.

As Philippine farmers warned that the country was facing a serious rice shortage...

Analysts note that the current shortage isn’t hitting as many people as hard as past shortages.

[HappyLC]

You're right, kwikdriver. What I should have said was that this is more of an adjustment in supply and demand, and an economic problem, than a "mass starvation, out-of-control overpopulation, end of the world" scenario, as that article and some responses in this thread seem to imply.

[Nancy LC]

It *is* a grain shortage in some areas. Africa, Haiti and the Philippines import a lot of rice from India and Vietnam and both of those have cut their exports sharply. There have been food riots in some places. The shortage is caused by lower yield (weather and insects), higher demand, higher prices for pesticides and fertilizers, higher transport costs. Nitrogen and potassium prices have skyrocketed.

The consequences for not being able to feed the populations of countries is really awful, yes even to those of us who think we're insulated. It could start a mass migration, food riots even here among poor people. The IMF is in serious trouble right now and can't meet its commitments to supplying food to poor nations because even it can't afford the higher prices.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89521900

[Baerdric]

but nobody worries about starving. This is true, we (Old and New World people) haven't really had to worry about it for two hundred years. We see and try to help the starving countries elsewhere, but it isn't our first and last thought every day like for some folks.

Fortunately, Global Warming, if we can ever really get some, might bring more rain to the equatorial deserts and open up the northern plains to more economical farming.

In the final analysis, a policy of Freedom, Education and Technology is the best answer, IMHO. The only other answer is to kill every third baby. I would be against that.

[Nancy LC]

In the final analysis, a policy of Freedom, Education and Technology is the best answer, IMHO. The only other answer is to kill every third baby. I would be against that.
Or prevent their conception.

[LessLiz]

I remember the terrible famine in Bangladesh in 1974.

Some of our UK members will know a lot more about this than I do, but I know people who were children living in England during WWII who are shorter than their parents and shorter than their children. They dealt with starvation during the war. My father spoke exactly once about the most horrific thing he saw in WWII. It was not the violence, it was being stationed at an airbase in England and the starving children who were on the other side of the fence. He and most of the soldiers there would eat a few bites of food then take their meals over and feed the children through the fence.

I hope the world doesn't re-learn the heartbreak of famine. I'm afraid it will.

[Baerdric]

Or prevent their conception.That would be part of that Freedom, Education and Technology solution I mentioned.

[Lessara]

All I could think was "Oh good I'm helping the relief of this shortage" :lol:

[1000times]

All I could think was "Oh good I'm helping the relief of this shortage" :lol:
How much are you paying for your grass-fed beef? Or are you eating locally-foraged game or some such?

[Baerdric]

How much are you paying for your grass-fed beef? Right, because it takes at least 3 lbs of fodder to make one lb of beef.

[Citruskiss]

I have been wondering if the rising prices for things like high fructose corn syrup and wheat might encourage people to buy more produce, meat, fish and eggs instead of grains, sugar, and corn.

Here's an interesting couple of quotes from an article I came across in the New York Times:

In the category of meat and dairy, rising commodity prices could very likely help the small but growing number of farmers who raise animals the old-fashioned way, on grassy pastures. With little or no need for expensive grain, these farmers can sell their milk and meat for more attractive prices.

As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/dining/02cheap.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=dining&pagewanted=all

[Wyvrn]

I'm paying < $5/lb for grass-finished free-range beef. If I ordered all cheap cuts I could probably get it down to $2.50/lb, but I order a variety including t-bone, New York steaks and rib roasts.

[LessLiz]

It's a bit under $5/pound here if you buy a mixed quarter. If you buy it through a CSA program where you are getting it once a month it costs $5/pound. In that case you are paying for storage and extra transportation cost.

[Baerdric]

In that case you are paying for storage and extra transportation cost.In every case that doesn't involve fraud, what ever you pay for anything boils down to energy-dollars. Even if you buy organic spinach from a local grower, you are paying him so he can buy more shovels which are trucked in from a supplier who made them by running machines and paying employees who drove to work and to buy groceries from guys who had them trucked in... etc, etc.

A five dollar steak of any type equals about 1.5 gallons of gas that someone burned. When you see it that way, you realize that our personal habits are just a variation in the path energy takes.

Our options are to find more energy or abandon technology. Unless we decrease the number of people to pre-technology levels, we can't live in a pre-technology world. I vote to find more energy.

[teaser]

Grain fed beef becomes more expensive, so grass fed producers lower their prices? They finally have the market where they want it, so they can trade their product for less money?
Lately I'm eating mostly grain-fed pork and chicken. I've been able to afford better for going on twenty years now, but the twenty years before that left a pretty big impression. (Not that I spent much time worrying about the price of food when I was a baby.) I figure I'll get away with it as long as I skip the organic double fudge cookies with all local ingredients grown without a hundred mile radius of my home. Can you even grow cocoa beans that close to Toronto? And if I did cave and have a cookie, guess I couldn't dip it in fair trade coffee from Kenya. So much for that independent Kenyan Coffee Farmer (or better yet that Kenyan Coffee Collective.) I guess those people's livelihood is no longer the flavour of the week.
Seriously, (Yes, that's right, those were the jokes...) I think a pretty good way to gauge how much energy goes into a foodstuff, once you get past branding, is the price. The margins on more or less generic foodstuffs are pretty tight.

I wonder how much lower grain stocks have to do with modern management practices. In manufacturing, production to demand has been fairly popular in recent years. Instead of stockpiling goods, companies wait for orders, and then quickly fill them. It amounts to spending resources for increased manufacturing capacity rather than for storage. I make my living in a small family business, and our biggest customer worked on this model of business with greeting cards. They were ready to take over the world, until an American company mistook them for a life preservor and dragged them down with them. People might start thinking that the ability to ship massive loads of grain all over the world is all the insurance we need--no need to worry about local stockpiles. Might as well turn all that extra grain into ethanol.

[TheCaveman]

Our options are to find more energy or abandon technology. Unless we decrease the number of people to pre-technology levels, we can't live in a pre-technology world. I vote to find more energy.

Tainter is not convinced that even new technology will save civilisation in the long run. "I sometimes think of this as a 'faith-based' approach to the future," he says. Even a society reinvigorated by cheap new energy sources will eventually face the problem of diminishing returns once more. Innovation itself might be subject to diminishing returns, or perhaps absolute limits.

Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

* 02 April 2008
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Debora MacKenzie

DOOMSDAY. The end of civilisation. Literature and film abound with tales of plague, famine and wars which ravage the planet, leaving a few survivors scratching out a primitive existence amid the ruins. Every civilisation in history has collapsed, after all. Why should ours be any different?

Doomsday scenarios typically feature a knockout blow: a massive asteroid, all-out nuclear war or a catastrophic pandemic (see "Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?"). Yet there is another chilling possibility: what if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?

A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

Some say we have already reached this point, and that it is time to start thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not yet too late, and that we can - we must - act now to keep disaster at bay.
Environmental mismanagement

History is not on our side. Think of Sumeria, of ancient Egypt and of the Maya. In his 2005 best-seller Collapse, Jared Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, blamed environmental mismanagement for the fall of the Mayan civilisation and others, and warned that we might be heading the same way unless we choose to stop destroying our environmental support systems.

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC agrees. He has long argued that governments must pay more attention to vital environmental resources. "It's not about saving the planet. It's about saving civilisation," he says.

Others think our problems run deeper. From the moment our ancestors started to settle down and build cities, we have had to find solutions to the problems that success brings. "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increasing complexity in human societies," says Joseph Tainter, an archaeologist at Utah State University, Logan, and author of the 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies.

If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That much the Sumerians knew.
Diminishing returns

There is, however, a price to be paid. Every extra layer of organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building canals to educating scribes. And increasing complexity, Tainter realised, produces diminishing returns. The extra food produced by each extra hour of labour - or joule of energy invested per farmed hectare - diminishes as that investment mounts. We see the same thing today in a declining number of patents per dollar invested in research as that research investment mounts. This law of diminishing returns appears everywhere, Tainter says.

To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.

Eventually, says Tainter, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes or barbarians invade, overstretched institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less complex society, which is organised on a smaller scale or has been taken over by another group.

Tainter sees diminishing returns as the underlying reason for the collapse of all ancient civilisations, from the early Chinese dynasties to the Greek city state of Mycenae. These civilisations relied on the solar energy that could be harvested from food, fodder and wood, and from wind. When this had been stretched to its limit, things fell apart.
An ineluctable process

Western industrial civilisation has become bigger and more complex than any before it by exploiting new sources of energy, notably coal and oil, but these are limited. There are increasing signs of diminishing returns: the energy required to get each new joule of oil is mounting and although global food production is still increasing, constant innovation is needed to cope with environmental degradation and evolving pests and diseases - the yield boosts per unit of investment in innovation are shrinking. "Since problems are inevitable," Tainter warns, "this process is in part ineluctable."

Is Tainter right? An analysis of complex systems has led Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the same conclusion that Tainter reached from studying history. Social organisations become steadily more complex as they are required to deal both with environmental problems and with challenges from neighbouring societies that are also becoming more complex, Bar-Yam says. This eventually leads to a fundamental shift in the way the society is organised.

"To run a hierarchy, managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing," Bar-Yam says. As complexity increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around the whole thing, and this starts to become impossible. At that point, hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is distributed. We are at this point.

This shift to decentralised networks has led to a widespread belief that modern society is more resilient than the old hierarchical systems. "I don't foresee a collapse in society because of increased complexity," says futurologist and industry consultant Ray Hammond. "Our strength is in our highly distributed decision making." This, he says, makes modern western societies more resilient than those like the old Soviet Union, in which decision making was centralised.
Increasing connectedness

Things are not that simple, says Thomas Homer-Dixon, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, Canada, and author of the 2006 book The Upside of Down. "Initially, increasing connectedness and diversity helps: if one village has a crop failure, it can get food from another village that didn't."

As connections increase, though, networked systems become increasingly tightly coupled. This means the impacts of failures can propagate: the more closely those two villages come to depend on each other, the more both will suffer if either has a problem. "Complexity leads to higher vulnerability in some ways," says Bar-Yam. "This is not widely understood."

The reason is that as networks become ever tighter, they start to transmit shocks rather than absorb them. "The intricate networks that tightly connect us together - and move people, materials, information, money and energy - amplify and transmit any shock," says Homer-Dixon. "A financial crisis, a terrorist attack or a disease outbreak has almost instant destabilising effects, from one side of the world to the other."

For instance, in 2003 large areas of North America and Europe suffered blackouts when apparently insignificant nodes of their respective electricity grids failed. And this year China suffered a similar blackout after heavy snow hit power lines. Tightly coupled networks like these create the potential for propagating failure across many critical industries, says Charles Perrow of Yale University, a leading authority on industrial accidents and disasters.
Credit crunch

Perrow says interconnectedness in the global production system has now reached the point where "a breakdown anywhere increasingly means a breakdown everywhere". This is especially true of the world's financial systems, where the coupling is very tight. "Now we have a debt crisis with the biggest player, the US. The consequences could be enormous."

"A networked society behaves like a multicellular organism," says Bar-Yam, "random damage is like lopping a chunk off a sheep." Whether or not the sheep survives depends on which chunk is lost. And while we are pretty sure which chunks a sheep needs, it isn't clear - it may not even be predictable - which chunks of our densely networked civilisation are critical, until it's too late.

"When we do the analysis, almost any part is critical if you lose enough of it," says Bar-Yam. "Now that we can ask questions of such systems in more sophisticated ways, we are discovering that they can be very vulnerable. That means civilisation is very vulnerable."

So what can we do? "The key issue is really whether we respond successfully in the face of the new vulnerabilities we have," Bar-Yam says. That means making sure our "global sheep" does not get injured in the first place - something that may be hard to guarantee as the climate shifts and the world's fuel and mineral resources dwindle.
Tightly coupled system

Scientists in other fields are also warning that complex systems are prone to collapse. Similar ideas have emerged from the study of natural cycles in ecosystems, based on the work of ecologist Buzz Holling, now at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Some ecosystems become steadily more complex over time: as a patch of new forest grows and matures, specialist species may replace more generalist species, biomass builds up and the trees, beetles and bacteria form an increasingly rigid and ever more tightly coupled system.

"It becomes an extremely efficient system for remaining constant in the face of the normal range of conditions," says Homer-Dixon. But unusual conditions - an insect outbreak, fire or drought - can trigger dramatic changes as the impact cascades through the system. The end result may be the collapse of the old ecosystem and its replacement by a newer, simpler one.

Globalisation is resulting in the same tight coupling and fine-tuning of our systems to a narrow range of conditions, he says. Redundancy is being systematically eliminated as companies maximise profits. Some products are produced by only one factory worldwide. Financially, it makes sense, as mass production maximises efficiency. Unfortunately, it also minimises resilience. "We need to be more selective about increasing the connectivity and speed of our critical systems," says Homer-Dixon. "Sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits."

Is there an alternative? Could we heed these warnings and start carefully climbing back down the complexity ladder? Tainter knows of only one civilisation that managed to decline but not fall. "After the Byzantine empire lost most of its territory to the Arabs, they simplified their entire society. Cities mostly disappeared, literacy and numeracy declined, their economy became less monetised, and they switched from professional army to peasant militia."
Staving off collapse

Pulling off the same trick will be harder for our more advanced society. Nevertheless, Homer-Dixon thinks we should be taking action now. "First, we need to encourage distributed and decentralised production of vital goods like energy and food," he says. "Second, we need to remember that slack isn't always waste. A manufacturing company with a large inventory may lose some money on warehousing, but it can keep running even if its suppliers are temporarily out of action."

The electricity industry in the US has already started identifying hubs in the grid with no redundancy available and is putting some back in, Homer-Dixon points out. Governments could encourage other sectors to follow suit. The trouble is that in a world of fierce competition, private companies will always increase efficiency unless governments subsidise inefficiency in the public interest.

Homer-Dixon doubts we can stave off collapse completely. He points to what he calls "tectonic" stresses that will shove our rigid, tightly coupled system outside the range of conditions it is becoming ever more finely tuned to. These include population growth, the growing divide between the world's rich and poor, financial instability, weapons proliferation, disappearing forests and fisheries, and climate change. In imposing new complex solutions we will run into the problem of diminishing returns - just as we are running out of cheap and plentiful energy.

"This is the fundamental challenge humankind faces. We need to allow for the healthy breakdown in natural function in our societies in a way that doesn't produce catastrophic collapse, but instead leads to healthy renewal," Homer-Dixon says. This is what happens in forests, which are a patchy mix of old growth and newer areas created by disease or fire. If the ecosystem in one patch collapses, it is recolonised and renewed by younger forest elsewhere. We must allow partial breakdown here and there, followed by renewal, he says, rather than trying so hard to avert breakdown by increasing complexity that any resulting crisis is actually worse.
Tipping points

Lester Brown thinks we are fast running out of time. "The world can no longer afford to waste a day. We need a Great Mobilisation, as we had in wartime," he says. "There has been tremendous progress in just the past few years. For the first time, I am starting to see how an alternative economy might emerge. But it's now a race between tipping points - which will come first, a switch to sustainable technology, or collapse?"

Tainter is not convinced that even new technology will save civilisation in the long run. "I sometimes think of this as a 'faith-based' approach to the future," he says. Even a society reinvigorated by cheap new energy sources will eventually face the problem of diminishing returns once more. Innovation itself might be subject to diminishing returns, or perhaps absolute limits.

Studies of the way cities grow by Luis Bettencourt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, support this idea. His team's work suggests that an ever-faster rate of innovation is required to keep cities growing and prevent stagnation or collapse, and in the long run this cannot be sustainable.

The stakes are high. Historically, collapse always led to a fall in population. "Today's population levels depend on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture," says Tainter. "Take those away and there would be a reduction in the Earth's population that is too gruesome to think about."

If industrialised civilisation does fall, the urban masses - half the world's population - will be most vulnerable. Much of our hard-won knowledge could be lost, too. "The people with the least to lose are subsistence farmers," Bar-Yam observes, and for some who survive, conditions might actually improve. Perhaps the meek really will inherit the Earth.

Read the companion article about pandemics
Related Articles

* Could a pandemic bring down civilisation?
* http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19826501.400
* 05 April 2008

From issue 2650 of New Scientist magazine, 02 April 2008, page 32-35

Linkage (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826501.500-why-the-demise-of-civilisation-may-be-inevitable.html)

[LC FP]

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC agrees. He has long argued that governments must pay more attention to vital environmental resources. "It's not about saving the planet. It's about saving civilisation," he says.
Actually I think the planet is more important than our stupid civilisation.

[moggsy]

I read that New Scientist issue a few days ago, and I can't say that the coverage of the grain shortage (and other issues) didn't bring that and the related articles to mind over the past few days.

[Baerdric]

"A networked society behaves like a multicellular organism," says Bar-Yam, "random damage is like lopping a chunk off a sheep." While there are many other misconceptions to point out in this article (if time allowed), this is the most staggering. A networked society is exactly the opposite of a multicellular organism. The failures pointed out were instances where networking had not progressed enough. If you are getting your power from 30 sources, one of them going out is not a danger. It is only when you have failed to diversify that such things are a problem.

The recent internet outage in India is a perfect example. Most of their country was supplied by one line, and it was from across a sea. A proper network would have at least three sources which were all capable of handling the whole traffic.

Technology may not be the only answer, but anyone who doesn't like that answer should also be willing to sign up to have their family removed from the equation.

[teaser]

Here's what takes a leap of faith-a move to an "alternative economy." And expecting that economy to be less, and not more, efficient. Everything's become too complex for a centralized authority, so we must decentralize, but the different segments are themselves in danger, so they must be regulated. And this is worldwide. So we needs us a worldwide authority to regulate a system that's been broken up into pieces small enough for the people operating them to understand.

[tie_guy]

If we look to the Mayan as a prediction of the future and the collapse of our civilization, don't forget that their (very advanced) calender ends in 2012. They believed that the world would be destroyed (for the final time) in the year 2012. Maybe we all only have 4 years left anyway (and there really are multiple levels in the underworld?) Or maybe not.

[jande2211]

If we look to the Mayan as a prediction of the future and the collapse of our civilization, don't forget that their (very advanced) calender ends in 2012. They believed that the world would be destroyed (for the final time) in the year 2012. Maybe we all only have 4 years left anyway (and there really are multiple levels in the underworld?) Or maybe not.

Dang, I only have 4 years to reach goal!!! :p

[Wifezilla]

I think you can lose 10 lbs in 4 years. I still have to lose 20, so I am under more pressure to leave a good looking corpse!

[Wyvrn]

Grain fed beef becomes more expensive, so grass fed producers lower their prices? They finally have the market where they want it, so they can trade their product for less money?.No, as grain becomes more expensive, grass-fed becomes more attractive as a business model, so there is more supply :)

[Angeline]

It might be more attractive for the small producers, but I wonder if the large scale operations can realistically go grass fed. I'm sure you need quite a chunk of land in order to support beef. And you also need to rotate fields, or you'll end up with overgrazing. I've never seen any statistics, but I can well imagine that you need a LOT more acreage than if you just feed your cattle energy dense grain.

So I think that if grain prices skyrocket, so will the price of beef.

[Nancy LC]

Actually I think the planet is more important than our stupid civilisation.
Yeah, new civilizations seem to arise from the remains of the old ones.

But seriously, I think the article has a lot of things right. The further specialized we get the more complex society gets and the easier it is to topple. It makes me seriously consider buying some land and starting to raise some goats or something.

[Wifezilla]

I figure I can support a small flock of ducks on my little suburban lot.

[Baerdric]

I figure I can support a small flock of ducks on my little suburban lot.Even though I disagree with the premise that nontechnological societies give us any predictive information about the life cycle of technological societies, my personal doomsday hysteria often makes me think about stuff like this.

I would love to have a situation where I could grow most or all of my fats and protien. Maybe a lake with a few ducks, maybe a few sheep or pigs. My family is small and won't be getting any larger, and I live in an area where that would be suitable.

But I would need to be friendly with a butcher... I'm a little squeamish.

[Wifezilla]

The neat thing about Khaki Campbell ducks is a lake isn't required..and they lay eggs like crazy.

[1000times]

I have been wondering if the rising prices for things like high fructose corn syrup and wheat might encourage people to buy more produce, meat, fish and eggs instead of grains, sugar, and corn.


Produce? Does your local grocer stock any produce that hasn't been trucked in using fossil-fuel diesel?
Meat? You're aware that the vast majority of beef, pork, and chicken (the Big 3 of the American table) is raised on grain, right?
Fish? You mean like West Coast salmon (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/358664_salmon11.html)?
Eggs? See chicken above (the chicken came first this time)


As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.
I tend to agree with this theory -- that as grain and HFCS prices go up, less will be consumed, by some people giving them up or cutting back. But I don't think they'll eat other things instead -- because the prices of those other things are going to go up too.

[Baerdric]

The neat thing about Khaki Campbell ducks is a lake isn't required..and they lay eggs like crazy. That's cool, but the lake is for fish.

Do you know those ducks that stand up all the time? They're too funny not to have a few of... Oh look! Khaki Campbells are related to them, Indian Runner Ducks. (Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?)

[frankly]

If we look to the Mayan as a prediction of the future and the collapse of our civilization, don't forget that their (very advanced) calender ends in 2012. They believed that the world would be destroyed (for the final time) in the year 2012. Maybe we all only have 4 years left anyway (and there really are multiple levels in the underworld?) Or maybe not.

I keep meaning to look into that more... I've heard it cited so many times now. According to the wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar) it seems as though it's some sort of new-age claptrap attributable to one José Argüelles. Oh well, I'm not too worried about what the Mayan's thought even if they did believe it, they had a corn god after all... I mean seriously.

[Wifezilla]

Good point Frank :D

[tie_guy]

I guess you are probably right, the 2012 end of world thing might be a stretch. This USA today article says that it just means their calender resets to zero. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-maya-2012_n.htm

Of course if the Europeans hadn't convinced themselves that the strange (to them) Mayan writing system was the tool of the devil then maybe more than like 3 Mayan books would have survived (out of the 10 or maybe 100 of thousands of books that were around when the white man got there.) Then maybe we could read more about this, as well as lessons learned from the collapse of their civilization, in their own words.

I guess all we have now is around 3 books, what was written on and what we can learn from their ruins, and the oral history of people who speak the Mayan language to this day.

Also I understand that they were really a collection of city states, and that not all cities collapsed at the same time. In fact some lasted almost to the time that the Europeans got there. And the people didn't disappear there just weren't enough of them anymore to make large cities.

[Citruskiss]

Produce? Does your local grocer stock any produce that hasn't been trucked in using fossil-fuel diesel?
Meat? You're aware that the vast majority of beef, pork, and chicken (the Big 3 of the American table) is raised on grain, right?
Fish? You mean like West Coast salmon (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/358664_salmon11.html)?
Eggs? See chicken above (the chicken came first this time)



I tend to agree with this theory -- that as grain and HFCS prices go up, less will be consumed, by some people giving them up or cutting back. But I don't think they'll eat other things instead -- because the prices of those other things are going to go up too.

I understand where you're coming from, but I was thinking that if things like noodles, bread and cereal aren't such a great 'deal' anymore, that people might purchase more nutrient-dense foods. I'm not saying that meats aren't grain fed and I'm not saying that we don't have to be more conscious of purchasing local produce - but I was thinking that if everything's more expensive - then people might consider nutrient density in terms of what their grocery dollars will buy.

Also, with regard to trucking stuff in - the grocery stores are more likely to carry local produce and meats - and I'm actually seeing a bit of a shift in grocery store prices relative to Wal-Mart Super Center prices. The local grocery store has suddenly become much more competitive in terms of meat, produce and dairy. That's because they're not trucking the stuff in from far-flung mass distribution centers.

Wal-Mart is still the category killer on things like paper towels, shampoo, cleaning products and so on - and that's because they've got their famed logistics, distribution and supply chain.

Thing is - their 'cheap food' is coming from a centralized procurement process. As the price of commodities goes up in tandem with ever-increasing fuel and diesel costs - they aren't going to be able to knock out the local grocery stores anymore.

Getting back to the nutrient-density angle - right now, it's cheaper to buy some eggs than it is to buy a loaf of bread. It's cheaper to buy a package of ground turkey than it is to buy a box of frozen Eggo waffles.

Meanwhile the eggs and the ground turkey are going to provide a lot more energy than the bread or the waffles. I can't help but wonder if we'll see a bit of a shift in grocery-buying habits.

It would be kind of neat don't you think? To have people realizing that hey, they're just not as hungry after a decent breakfast of a simple mushroom omelet - they're not finding themselves heading over to the vending machines at the office, looking for a Rice Krispie square or whatever.

If junk food isn't the 'lowest cost' food anymore, do you think people might start to consider the value of whole food?

[Citruskiss]

Actually, I just wanted to add one more thing that's been nagging at me. My stepdaughter just visited us here in Colorado from her tiny little town in Oklahoma.

Anyway, she was at the local grocery store recently - picking up some food for a friend of hers - and was shocked at how much cheaper the produce and meat was than where she's living.

Thing is - Wal-Mart's the only game in town where she lives. There aren't any grocery stores there anymore. She would have to drive for more than half an hour to get to a regular (old fashioned?) grocery store. So it's Wal-Mart, and that's all there really is.

Shopping at the local grocery store here was a real eye-opener for her. She was very shocked to see local produce, local meats and so on - for much less than she's paying at Wal-Mart.

This whole centralized procurement thing isn't necessarily the greatest idea in times like these.

Not only are we faced with the cost of trucking all this stuff in, we're also dealing with the fact that when there's a problem with the food supply - such as a salmonella outbreak or an e-coli outbreak - it's a nation-wide problem, instead of a localized problem that can be quickly resolved.

Just more food for thought.

[Baerdric]

shocked at how much cheaper the produce and meat was than where she's living. That must be a localized phenomenon. I live in a very small town, and I drive right past the local store, drive past another local store in another town, drive by the statewide chain store in the next town, cross state lines, drive through another town to get to the town that has the Walmart.

At this point it cost $12 in gas. But as long as I am spending more than $50, I make that money back. If I make that money back, then I make it back in Energy dollars, because it takes less energy for Walmart to bring things in by train and one semi-truck than for dozens of local suppliers to bring them in with their own less efficent trucks and vans.

Eggs at walmart are $0.15/egg, the cheapest I ever find them locally are $0.25/egg - I save almost $10 per week just on eggs.

Of course I do shop locally when I can, but I am poor-ish, and can't just throw energy dollars away for a philosophy. If my state would reduce taxes and regulations on business, if my town would lower their property taxes, more of my money would stay in town.

[Wifezilla]

If my state would reduce taxes and regulations on business, if my town would lower their property taxes, more of my money would stay in town.

::: swoon :::

[Baerdric]

::: swoon :::I would have to get a strap for my jaw if that ever happened.

The property values in my town have doubled since the last assessment, and that's even though they pushed through a special assessment four years early. Yet in spite of the fact that every one will now have to pay double taxes, they want a millage increase. Theives...

[tom sawyer]

Aldi's is quite a bit cheaper than Walmart. Eggs are still a buck, and fruit and veggies are usually 1/2 to 2/3 as expensive. They even have good deals on frozen fish, and a pretty good selection too. Now and then they have things like scallops or King crab, stuff you wouldn't automatically think Aldi's would carry.

No, I don't work at Aldi's.

[tom sawyer]

I talked with the wife about the society crashing articles posted here. Very thought provoking, to say the least. We live in town on a fairly large lot, it would be tough to make a go of it by subsistence farming.

Its tough to understand how you might cope with something like that happening, no running water/gasoline/power would require a big adjustment. I have enough bows/arrows and guns/ammo to be able to hunt indefinitely. we have a nice garden which could be expanded, albeit using a shovel. Just planted some more fruit trees in the back yard too. Guess carbs would be back on the menu if things get lean. Would re-install the rain barrel for water, that would mean lots fewer baths. Go back to the outhouse, remember the ones at my grandparents' farms. I don't suppose it would be very easy to purchase domesticated animals at this point, money would have little value. But it'd be nice to have some chickens, a goat and possibly a pig. And there's a lake nearby, and the Mississippi river for fishing.

The tough part would probably be fending off those people who are less well equipped in terms of supplies and knowhow.

[Baerdric]

Aldi's is quite a bit cheaper than Walmart.The one time I got to shop at an Aldi's I found the same thing. But it looked like they accomplished that by purchasing off-lots and odd-brands. I didn't have any objection to their produce, but the canned and boxed goods were second rate. I'm too persnickity to shop there much and since they are an hour away, that makes it not worth the drive.

We also have "Hannaford's" and "Shaw's" which are all 30-40% higher than Walmart. The local small stores are usually double at least. Except one guy who sells meat at a decent price. I do all the rest of my local business with him if I can, just to reward him for working harder on his meat price.

[Wifezilla]

Hey Baerdric,

At a local economic meeting, some gooberment official was talking about how our area could support twice as many businesses as we have. My husband (I love this man) said "Have you considered that the regulations and policies of the city may be keeping potential business owners out of the area?"

After some stammering, it was blamed on misconceptions by developers and real estate agents and the subject was quickly changed.

[Baerdric]

it was blamed on misconceptions by developers and real estate agents and the subject was quickly changed.Typical.

I was talking to one of our local muckitymucks and made what I think is a valid suggestion. See, we have the largest per capita city police force in the state, because of the new 9 member speeding inforcement team. Their job is to sit where the Ski Bums drive by too fast and try to siphon a little of that big city cash out of the stream.

The problem is that they trap them before they get to the quaint little Vermont village full of Touristy shops! Who's going to buy anything in a town that gave you a speeding ticket?

I suggested that if we were going to be a speed trap, that we should do it right. Only ticket those people who come into town and then leave without spending anything in our tourst traps. Maybe have the shops hand out a little flag or window decal.

I rounded it off by saying that we didn't want to inhibit any of the parasitic feeding off the Ski Area money since the taxes have already destroyed any and all actual wealth production in the town.

For some reason this Town Elder didn't like my Idea but didn't have any of his own to suggest. I tried using the graphical example that we were like a big bloated tick on the hind leg of the Ski Industry, but that didn't seem to make me any more welcome at the Town Meeting.

I don't get these folk. I'm just trying to help.

[tie_guy]

Aldi is like a German (less evil) version of Wal-mart. In fact I understand that because of Aldi, Germany is one of the few countries Wal-mart hasn't gotten a foothold in. In some ways Trader Joe's is an upscale version of Aldi since they are sort of owned by the same people.

Aldi (and TJ) only sell generic store brand products. The word is that often the generic items are actually the name brand products sold under contract to Aldi. Supposedly all they do is change the label on the Aldi version and that every thing else is identical to the more expensive stuff.

There is only one Aldi anywhere near me and that isn't in the best neighborhood. There is a TJ near me and that is my favorite super market. Personally I think TJ products are better than the name brand products.

[Baerdric]

Aldi is like a German (less evil) version of Wal-mart. Hmmm... since my Walmart hires the handicapped, retired and non-english speaking people of the area, providing honest work at a competitive wage - and since they supply me and other low income people with a wide selection of goods at a fair price, Aldi must be very non-evil indeed!

Plus, with Aldi, apparently, all the profits leave our country, so there's a bonus.

Aldi (and TJ) only sell generic store brand products. The word is that often the generic items are actually the name brand products sold under contract to Aldi. That may be, but the items I bought were second rate. Perhaps second rate name brands? Probably worth it at the reduced price, but I will spend more for consistency and higher quality.

[tom sawyer]

We don't use many canned goods other than green beans, and even less boxed items. You are right about them selling store brands though. I've bought olive oil, canned and packaged nuts and those were good. They also sell hot chorizo, essential for tasty fajitas.

I'll miss all that if society breaks down. Might have to buy some pepper seeds so I can make my own chorizo from wild game.

[tie_guy]

Do you guys ever watch zombie movies? Usually the zombies are slow and not very dangerous (well unless they form groups.) One of the lessons to learn is that the most dangerous creature in a zombie movie are the still living who panic and fight over dwindling resources.

Sure you may be able to produce enough food for yourself and your family, and you might have a couple of guns or whatever to protect the resource. What happens when all 500,000 or so people in that nearby city start to go hungry and then run out to more rural areas to get enough food to survive? They say any civilization is just three meals away from total anarchy. And I promise that there are more (and larger) guns in the city than there are in the country.

Personally I would rather either have a stock pile of food in a nuclear bomb proof bunker that only I know about, or be one of the first to turn into a zombie.

Basically I am saying that we all rely on each other a lot more than you may think, and if civilization collapses we are all totally 100% pretty much screwed. I don't care who you are or what type of resource you have saved, we are all in serious trouble. The world is a lot smaller than we sometimes like to think.

[Baerdric]

Do you remember when the doomsday scenario we all worried about was nuclear war? I had a method in those days. Live at Ground Zero. If we were going to have a nuclear war, all I wanted to know about it was a microsecond of very bright light. None of that wandering around in the ruins for me, and I didn't want to go hide in the mountains and wait for a better armed survivalist to find me.

But now the current en vogue End of the World hysteria doesn't seem to allow for any clean deaths. I don't know what I will do. Perhaps I will wait for the next Apopcalyptology trend and see what options are available then.

[teaser]

Is it like vampires, if you go first do you get to be the head zombie?
I'd say learn to make an igloo NOW. An Ice Age is as likely an end as any. And if you're not allowed to raise chickens where you live, see how many dogs and cats you can get away with.

It strikes me that raising grain to feed livestock might have made things better, rather than worse, in the current situation. In times of plenty, it provides a larger market and less risk in producing larger harvests. In times of scarcity, grain can be diverted for direct human consumption. Vegan arguments that cattle eat food that could have been eaten by hungry humans sort of fall apart when you realize that that food was grown to feed the cattle in the first place, and wouldn't otherwise even exist. If anyone wants to argue that cattle feed should, in an emergency, go to feed people, maybe they have a case.
I just read that in six of the last eight years there was less grain produced than consumed. I spent some time during those years reading about the wonders of ethanol. Pharoah got his seven fat sheathes of corn and made them into biofuel.

[jande2211]

Worst case, eat hippies. Like Wifezilla . . . she reminded me that they're grass fed. Don't think too many of them are armed.

[Baerdric]

I spent some time during those years reading about the wonders of ethanol.I've been for biofuel, but I know the limitiations of it. The average insolation of the earth's surface is not enough to supply the daily energy needed to bring the entire population up to Information-Age standards. Biofuels help to distribute the production of transportable energy, but it's hard to compete with the energy density of Oil.

Here is the history of Energy according to current theory (blatant irresponsible generalization alert).

All the energy in the Universe was contained in the Big Bang, most of it went into the expansion of space, but a huge amount dropped down into particles, which turned into hydrogen. The stored energy of teh Universe was now in Hydrogen, which condensed into stars, and fused into helium, then to larger atoms until some of it was iron. These first generation stars then exploded, and the force of the explosion fused some of the Hydrogen, helium and such into the heavier elements like Uranium.

So now, all the stored energy of the Universe is contained in Fusable products like hydrogen, and fissionable products like Uranium (actually any atom, but we can only extract these). The fisionable products ended up mostly in rocks, but the fusables (hydrogen) are either in the sun or in the chemicals of the planets.

The chemicals are usually combined into their lowest energy gradient, for instance Hydrogen is often found with oxygen, but the tension of its atomic structure is eased by it's union into water. That's why you can't just extract energy from water. You have to add energy to it to separate it from oxygen, then you can rejoin it to extract that energy you put in (fuel cells).

But the hydrogen in the sun is fusing, broadcasting energy across space to hit our planet at about 1000 watts/square meter.

Plants use that energy to manipulate chemicals into higher energy gradients, creating, as it were, tension in the molecules which can be released like a spring to provide energy at a later time.

Many of those plants are not used, but they still contain that energy, gathered at 1000 watts/meter over thousands of years. Those plants piled up, got covered over and turned into oil. So oil is solar energy, which is Big Bang energy.

Trying to compare a years worth of energy on a field (biofuel) to the stored energy of vast forests garnered over millenium is like comparing a gnat-sneeze to a hurricane.

Certainly we should use biofuel when we can, and solar power when we can, but both options, at this point and in the forseeable future, use more oil than they save. And of course we should find ways to conserve energy. But you cannot horde money to create prosperity, nor can you conserve energy to create a sustainable future for humanity. You must invest your capital to create new wealth.

The stored chemical energy on the Earth, in the form of oil or natural gas or coal etc, has an end. The input from the Sun has a limit, 1000 watts/square meter. We must either decrease our population or increase our fund of energy.

If we want to find more energy, we might need to look back towards the Big Bang. Fission and Fusion. Harvesting the energy of the Sun which is not hitting the earth, using space platforms. Finding energy in the asteroids or the chemicals of the outer planets.

We must make a choice. Increase, decrease or stagnate.

I vote for finding more energy, while we still have the energy to go find it.

OK, I'm done now... :D

[waywardsis]

Interesting stuff, Baerdric. Thanks.

[Baerdric]

Yeah, I realize now that no one asked me, but I got started and couldn't stop!8-O

We just did a segment on energy transmission in homeschool and so it's been on my mind.

[LC FP]

Baerdric, I read an estimate that about 10 million humans were around when agriculture developed. Not a lot. I don't think it was crowded back then and there was plenty of room for happy hunting grounds. That's probably what we'll get back to some day barring some great technological leap.

[Baerdric]

I find this image of the population density as of 1994 to be well worth contemplation. I once read a calculation that a certain small amount of land is required for each human's sustanance, and that if you divided up the Earth in to equal sized tracts and put one human in each section, you would have most of the earth left over. I don't know if that's true or not.

Of course, that visualization discounts the variablity of conditions in different locations, but the idea is that we are far from over populating the earth.

The limitation is energy, which is based upon Freedom, Education and Technology.

[Baerdric]

Oh, I didn't post the link (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Population_density.png)

[Marillia]

Did this calculation account for parts of the Earth that just aren't inhabitable? (Or aren't reasonably practical to inhabit.)

[Baerdric]

Did this calculation account for parts of the Earth that just aren't inhabitable? (Or aren't reasonably practical to inhabit.)Well, I don't know, but I assumed not. As I said, as a visualization it has technical problems, but it (to me) showed the falsity of the problem when considered on the scale of the whole Earth. I'll see if I can find it real quick.

Nope, but I'll look some more later.

[Baerdric]

I did find this, gives some figures for productive land, so now we need to find how much productive land there is.

"For simplicity's sake consider the region's ecological use of forested and arable land for domestic food, forest products, and fossil energy consumption alone: assuming an average Canadian diet and current management practices, 1.1 ha of land per capita is required for food production, 0.5 ha for forest products, and 3.5 ha would be required to produce the biomass energy (ethanol) equivalent of current per capita fossil energy consumption. (Alternatively, a comparable area of temperate forest is required exclusively to assimilate current per capita C02 emissions (see 'Calculating the Ecological Footprint'). Thus, to support just their food and fossil fuel consumption, the region's 1.7 million people require, conservatively, 8.7 million ha of land in continuous production."

[feelskinny]

Do you guys ever watch zombie movies? Usually the zombies are slow and not very dangerous (well unless they form groups.) One of the lessons to learn is that the most dangerous creature in a zombie movie are the still living who panic and fight over dwindling resources.




yup. Always bottom line.

I'm what you may call an intense movie analyzer. Because I analyze what I would do in the character's shoes.

Yet; who knows?

What lengths would I go to defend, protect my family, friends, myself?
Or would I be jelly-kneed and simply pass-out? You will never know...ask anyone who has faced a life or death scenario.

My analogy is;
We don't live in a life/death--daily life-threatening society; our fight/flight mechanisms are not exercised on a daily life basis [as it may have been for our ancestors] We get our adrenaline rush through vicariousness.
[movies]

[Baerdric]

Because I analyze what I would do in the character's shoes.I have hope for humanity because I don't believe that most people would act like movie writers want us to think we will. While some rioting and such does happen on a regular basis, I believe that most humans are still at home in those situations. And of course larger crowds can be made to stampede when the herd instinct is tampered with.

But I just can't believe that we would all act like that at the drop of the hat. Not for any reason I can state except for this...

If there were a mass murderer loose in the neighborhood, and I heard a noise... I would NOT go down into the basement!8-O

Movies tell us we would act that way because it makes a scarier movie (and sometimes social agendas), not because we are fated to revert to canabalism if the lights go out for a few hours. The worst thing is that some people would believe the movies, expect others to act that way and so try to beat them to the punch - thereby validating the movie.