Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Daily we are deluged with gloom about how we are overwhelming the Earth’s ability to sustain and support our growing numbers. Increasing population is again being hailed as the catastrophe of the century. In addition, floods and droughts are said to be leading to widespread crop loss. The erosion of topsoil is claimed to be affecting production. It is said that we are overdrawing our resources, with more people going hungry. Paul Ehrlich and the late Stephen Schneider assure us that we are way past the tipping point, that widespread starvation is unavoidable.
Is this true? Is increasing hunger inevitable for our future? Are we really going downhill? Are climate changes (natural or anthropogenic) making things worse for the poorest of the poor? Are we running out of food? Is this what we have to face?
Figure 1. The apocalyptic future envisioned by climate alarmists. Image Source
Fortunately, we have real data regarding this question. The marvelous online resource, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics database called FAOSTAT, has data on the amount of food that people have to eat.
Per capita (average per person) food consumption is a good measure of the welfare of a group of people because it is a broad-based indicator. Some kinds of measurements can be greatly skewed by a few outliers. Per capita wealth is an example. Since one person can be a million times wealthier than another person, per capita wealth can be distorted by a few wealthy individuals.
But no one can eat a million breakfasts per day. If the per capita food consumption goes up, it must perforce represent a broad-based change in the food consumption of a majority of the population. This makes it a good measure for our purposes.
The FAOSTAT database gives values for total food consumption in calories per day, as well as for protein and fat consumption in grams per day. (Fat in excess is justly maligned in the Western diet, but it is a vital component of a balanced diet, and an important dietary indicator.) Here is the change over the last fifty years:
Figure 2. Consumption of calories, protein, and fat as a global average (thin lines), and for the “LDCs”, the Least Developed Countries (thick lines) . See Appendix 1 for a list of LDCs.
To me, that simple chart represents an amazing accomplishment. What makes it amazing is that from 1960 to 2000, the world population doubled. It went from three billion to six billion. Simply to stay even, we needed to double production of all foodstuffs. We did that, we doubled global production, and more. The population in the LDCs grew even faster, it has more than tripled since 1961. But their food consumption stayed at least even until the early 1990s. And since then, food consumption has improved across the board for the LDCs.
Here’s the bad news for the doomsayers. At this moment in history, humans are better fed than at any time in the past. Ever. The rich are better fed. The middle class is better fed. The poor, and even the poorest of the poor are better fed than ever in history.
Yes, there’s still a heap of work left to do. Yes, there remain lots of real issues out there.
But while we are fighting the good fight, let’s remember that we are better fed than we have ever been, and take credit for an amazing feat. We have doubled the population and more, and yet we are better fed than ever. And in the process, we have proven, once and for all, that Malthus, Ehrlich, and their ilk were and are wrong. A larger population doesn’t necessarily mean less to eat.
Of course despite being proven wrong for the nth time, it won’t be the last we hear of the ineluctable Señor Malthus. He’s like your basic horror film villain, incapable of being killed even with a stake through the heart at a crossroads at midnight … or the last we hear of Paul Ehrlich, for that matter. He’s never been right yet, so why should he snap his unbeaten string?
APPENDIX 1: Least Developed Countries
Africa (33 countries)
Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mozambique
Niger
Rwanda
São Tomé and Príncipe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Togo
Tanzania
Uganda
Zambia
Eurasia (10 countries)
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Cambodia
East Timor
Laos
Maldives
Myanmar
Nepal
Yemen
Americas (1 country)
Haiti
Oceania (5 countries)
Kiribati
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Sponsored IT training links:
Pass your RH302 certification exam on first try using up to date 70-270 dumps and 646-985 practice exam .
“But the notion that ‘vast areas’ are built on is just broken. The entire world population could fit in Texas and Oklahoma in standard suburban homes with large yards leaving the rest of the world empty. If done at the population density of London, it would clearly be far less land. “
hmmm …
World Population = 6 billion people
Land Area of TX & OK = 331,000 mi^2 (US Census Bureau)
Density = 6 x 10^9 people/ 3.3 x 10^5 mi^2 = 18,000 people / mi^2
or about 7,100 people km^2
The current population density of London = 4,800 people / km^2 ( from Wikipedia). So putting one giant “London” over all of TX and OK would STILL provide only 2/3 of the space needed for the world population. We would need considerably MORE room, not considerably LESS room.
**************************************
“everyone can have an ocean view condo, with no building higher than about 4 stories (IIRC) and with only ONE building thickness between ocean and backyard. (That is, one end of your condo looks at the ocean, the other end looks at ‘big empty’ inland. No other buildings). The math is rather interesting. ”
hmmmm …
World Coastline: 356,000 km (CIA World Factbook)
6 x 10^9 people / 356,000 km = 17,000 people per km of shore line.
Stacked 4 floors tall = 4,000 people/km = 4 people/m.
But the fractal nature would come into play. If the CIA estimate is on a broad scale, the smaller bays and peninsulas could boost this a bit. So perhaps each person would get a meter or two of ocean view to call their own. (Although a lot of people would end up with views of the polar ice cap or inhospitable deserts.)
************************************
Part of the problem with any discussion like this is that people throw around “facts” without any particular backing. If a reference was given or calculations shown, then it would be much easier to accept claims.
I’ll go back to my own corner of the internet for a while and leave the rest of you to discuss … 🙂
For those who are interested, I would say the best book on peakoil is Campbells ‘Coming Oil Crisis’. Its a 1997 book, but the analysis holds good even if thedetail is out of date. His later one, Oil Crisis, while interesting, IMHO, not so good/useful.
I don’t want to buy the book. Can you summarise in 2 sentences why oil must be biogenic?
———
One is the geology. One can usually find the source rock that the oil came from, it will always be biological. See the source rock for Tupi, the “big” find off Brazil. The second reason is many of the molecules in early formed oil, like kerogen, are the same as biological lipids.
The main argument, in that first link I posted, is that oil at great depth cannot survive the heat.
Also, oil cannot move into tight formations like Bakken. Bakken is an example of the oil being in the source rock.
Again, this is an excellent summery of why abiotic is not viable:
http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf
Eureka! Something happened that an expert couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Do you see a pattern emerging here?
———-
No expert can defy the laws of physics.
Fact 1: Oil is finite because the planet is finite
Fact 2: Oil is extremely rare in geological terms
Fact 3: easily extracted oil will aways be consumed first
Fact 4: less easy oil will be of lower quality requiring more energy to extract and refine than easy oil, and will have a lower flow rate
Fact 5: the world’s largest fields are all in terminal decline
Fact 6: new “giant” fields are small. Even Bakken at some 450bb, is only 13 years of world consumption (33bb/year)
No technology, no “expert” can change any of these.
“4:1 is the break even for society.”
Why 4:1 and not 2:1 or 3:2?
—–
It has to do with maintaining and repairing of infrastructure.
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1/25/pdf
Ralph says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:13 am
>>Tenuc:
>>Nuclear power stations currently produce around 15%
>>of the worlds demand for electricity
“Yes, but electricity only accounts for 8% of total energy demand. So nuclear power is still a very small percentage of our power – I make that 1.2% of total energy supply.
Mike was right, there has been little change in our energy supply materials for two or more centuries.
Ever more rubbish – looks like you glass is always half full too, Ralph!
In 2005 nuclear power accounted for 6.3% of world’s total primary energy supply. The technology is proven, is scalable – with enough fissionable material to last for thousands of years. Just need the price of fossil fuels to rise a little bit more and the growth of nuclear power will mushroom!
AGW has been around for over 100 years, and its wrong.
—————
AGW has been around for about 30 years.
There is big difference in the two. First Peak Oil is not promoted by a UN body equivelent to the IPCC. There isn’t billions being spend on peak oil studies like AGW. And there isn’t the political motivation behind Peak Oil as their is AGW.
Just because AGW is a myth does not mean Peak Oil is. They have to be judged on their own merits. Peak Oil is being written about from a number of independant studies.
Peak Oil is also far easier to understand than the complex climate system.
“Mushroom”? ha ha
William R. Catton, Jr. says:
September 9, 2010 at 6:25 am
I, on the other hand, am tired of Malthusians who ignore centuries of contrary evidence that clearly has disproven, over and over, Malthus’s theory.
Finally, I started to read your book, and I couldn’t get past the definitions. Here’s one:
Now, any farmer can tell you when they have exceeded the carrying capacity of the land. How? The yield starts to drop immediately. Not next week. Not “in time”. Immediately.
And since we see no sign of said decrease in yield, I say your claim that we are in “overshoot” is nonsense.
GM says:
September 9, 2010 at 8:19 am
That has to qualify as one of the most inane statements of the thread. People like Paul Ehrlich also have “hundreds of years of research in ecology plus thousands of years of human history to back up their predictions” and guess what?
HIS PREDICTIONS HAVE BEEN WRONG EVERY SINGLE TIME.
So I’d say have having research available means absolutely nothing about the validity of predictions. You keep talking about “overshoot”, but no one yet has demonstrated that “overshoot” even exists, much less that it has the properties that you claim it has. More facts and less theory would go a long way here. You may be “100% certain” as you claim, but surely you must know that means less than nothing without hard evidence to back it up.
I always enjoy your posts, Willis.
When you bring overwhelming facts to bear on a single issue, there’s never any wiggle room for escape.
Ref – Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Pascvaks says:
September 9, 2010 at 4:53 am
Willis:
Ok! True enough! When we lose hope, we’ve lost everything. Sometimes I feel like a pauper. But I do think that population and not global warming is what they’re actually so upset about. AGW is a major campaign, not the whole nine yards.
PS: I too hope and (you know) that the silent multitude who read WUWT are taking away all this and passing it on.
1. Imagine that you remove all the non-renewable resources that you use in order to get these yields – oil to drive the large mechanized equipment, fertilizers (phosphorus and natural gas), pesticides (oil), irrigation (fossil fresh water in most cases), and see what yield will be. So much for not being in overshoot
2. On top of that, you have completely failed to understand the ecological basics of overshoot and the very simple concept of a time lag between entering overshoot and the onset of collapse.
Let’s do the following experiment – I am at the balcony of the 10th floor of a building, you are on the street. I will drop a brick on from the 10th floor aiming straight for your head. How much evidence will it take for you to stop denying the laws of gravity and move out of its way?
Murray Duffin says:
September 9, 2010 at 8:28 am
I spell “peak oil” as “technology plus price”. How much oil is out there? Depends on price. If oil is at $10 per barrel, there is very, very little. At $110 per barrel, on the other hand, there is lots.
And we are currently burning oil that we could not even access two decades ago, because of the lack of technology. Or for another example, at $100 per barrel, cost-effective technology exists to convert coal to oil. How much oil is there in that case? The “peak” is a function of price and technology.
Then you say that “exports peaked in 2005”. Nonsense. Here are the numbers:
As you can see, no peak. Nor have proved reserves fallen. In fact, despite all the oil we pump and use, proved reserves have increased steadily since 1980. From the same source:
Again, no peak. As much as we have been burning, we have been finding more than we have burned. And bear in mind that these proved reserves are normal oil, and do not include oilsands or shale oil or oil from coal or the like.
Which is why facts are much more useful than the types of unsubstantiated claims that you are making …
Tom says:
September 9, 2010 at 9:12 am
I do not assume that because food kept up with population increase in the past, it will also do so in the future. However, I do say that we have no a priori reason and no historical evidence to claim that there will undoubtedly be problems in the future, as Malthus, you, and many on this thread claim.
Note that the increase in food per capita is not limited to just the rich countries, nor just to those utilizing modern farming methods. It has been extremely broad, from the rich countries down to the poor countries. So we have not one, but literally hundreds of examples of countries where food is keeping up with population growth.
So if you want to claim the opposite, that food will inevitably fall behind population growth, you’ll need to explain why it has not happened in the past in hundreds of countries. You are the one swimming against the historical tide, not I.
Ever heard of net energy? Apparently not. There is a reason why oil at $110 is at $110. Not to mention the flow problem. In other words, call me when you find a way to produce the 1 billion barrels of heavy oil in Orinoco at a rate of 20 million barrels a day. And you conveniently forget that 30 years later it will be all gone…
Yet the majority of our oil still comes from the super giant fields found in the 1950s.
Again, what is the EROEI in this case and how much could you produce in this case. And even if, in a totally unrealistic scenario, you could replace capacity lost due to depletion with coal-to-liquids, what happens to the climate in such a case and how does this help solve the problems with fossil aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, general ecosystem collapse, depletion of various high grade ores, the list goes on. It doesn’t and Liebig’s law (another thing you are probably in complete denial of or haven’t even heard of but which will continue to be as true as it ever was no matter whether you want to deny it or not) will still do us
Where did you get these plots from? They make absolutely no sense.
Again, what is the source? I wouldn’t ask in general, but given that it is a very well known fact that global oil discovery peaked in the 60s, and we are consuming 5 times what we’re finding right now, I have all the reasons to think that you, or your source are simply lying
Berényi Péter says:
September 9, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Ralph says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:03 am
Take the Holodomor, for instance. Stalin destablilises the economic/political system that organises agriculture in the USSR, and up to 10 million people starve in the Ukraine.
Yes, up to 10,000,000 people starved, in just one small region.
_________________________________________________
The comment, at least by me, was as an example of politicians being the main source of the food distribution problem in answer to:
Mister Mr says: September 9, 2010 at 12:53 am
” Excellent post. As someone who has spent time as a relief worker in some of the worst refugee camps on earth, I can relate from first hand experience that, short of temporary natural disasters, the problem is not that there isn’t enough food… what stands in the way most often is men with guns who call themselves “the government” in these regions…”
I even go so far as to question the groupthink that the world population peak will occur 40 years from now or even later. I cannot rule out the possibility we are at it NOW.
Hu McCulloch says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:25 am
Hu, thanks for your comment. While that may be your point, Hu, Malthus never said anything even remotely resembling your claim. He said that population goes up geometrically, and food supply goes up arithmetically. Since neither of those is even remotely true, what is left of Malthus’s claim? Nothing. So how can it be a “good (if incomplete) point” when it rests on two incorrect claims?
Is it “remarkable” that as the numbers of people increase, the amount of food produced also increases? Not at all. What neither you nor Malthus seem to have noted is that, even with absolutely no change in technology, people can manage to grow enough to feed the increased population. Food production is not an independent variable. Food production is a function of population. Given equal technology, two people cannot grow as much food as two hundred people.
The issue is not technology. The issue is that when people get hungry they do whatever it takes to feed themselves. They plant more acreage. They double crop. They do what they need to do. Which is why even the LDCs, the poorest of the poor, with no big changes in technology, have not obeyed Malthus’s dictum. The population of the LDCs TRIPLED in the last 40 years, but their nutrition did not drop at all, and in the last decade has increased.
Since according to Malthus’s claim, tripling the population with no loss in nutrition is flat out absolutely impossible, how is his point “good (if incomplete)”. Seems to me like it is both wrong and incomplete.
Only if it is physically possible. If it is not, they die. As has happened countless times historically.
[snip]
[img]http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Oil%20discoveries.png[/img]
[img]http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Oil%20production%20plateau.png[/img]
dunno if those tags worked or not, anyway the IEA disagrees
so does the basic physics of oil fields:
regardless of technology they hit the depletion zone at roughly the time where about half the recoverable oil has been extracted, and all oil fields do this, even with tertiary techniques being used from the beginning—that tends to flatten out the production curve but make the crash far sharper when they do deplete
all the major fields are in decline, the smaller newer ones are no longer keeping up with the decline rates
and that’s but a small data sample, the IEA has much more, so does theoildrum.com
another factor in play here is that as the oil export market shrinks the domestic demand of the oil exporters themselves will also climb and since their exports are what is leftover after satisfying their consumption the export market will fall much faster than the world oil production rate………..this is known as the “land export model” credit to jeffrey brown(I think)
GM says:
“Apparently the authors [sic] has zero awareness of basic principles of ecology.”
Too funny. GM has it exactly backward. “Ecologists” have zero awareness of the Scientific Method. They’re at about the same level of scientific rigor as astrologists.
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/ccst20090515.png
On abiogenic oil:
Supporting Dr Gold’s hypothesis are the methane seas on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Did ancient organisms create those hydrocarbons, too?