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
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In the next thread you see him in he is going to ask you for peer-reviewed evidence, I am willing to bet on it.
And how exactly you’re going to get that with the current level of general education and awareness of the population? Enlighten us.
Democracy only works if the people in it have achieved a certain level of intellectual development, education and possess sufficient information to be able to take adequate decisions. Those conditions aren’t met anywhere in the world right now, it’s better in some places, worse in others, but in general it is either sliding into complete chaos or towards idiocracy.
Uranium Reserves – I make that to be 80 years supply at present use rates. Not so good. But we do have more thorium.
“Nor have proved reserves fallen. In fact, despite all the oil we pump and use, proved reserves have increased steadily since 1980.” Willis, actually proved reserves declined for nearly 2 decades until Canada decided to reclassify tar sands as proved reserves a few years back. For sure the oil is there and it is recoverable, but we are back to “stocks and flows”. Readily and rapidly recoverable reserves are still falling.
Vince Causey – You are right that energy is the problem, and there is no shortage of energy available. However we will have real and damaging shortage of our most commonly used energy today well before we do the necessary to harness substitutes, and if we wait long enough the shortage will make it more difficult to harness the substitutes. the certainty of so many contributors here that there is no problem is the biggest reason that we will have a problem, because that false certainty ensures that we will not address the problem before it becomes a crisis.
GM is continuously creating straw men, unfortunately since the world of ideas is basically infinite we won’t have the luxury of on “overshoot” wrt to his posts.
He is mostly arguing a tautology. Yes we all know there are finite resources. However population is set to roll over and start decreasing. Prices will put pressure on certain kinds of activities. I think it is just as reasonable to say that we will adapt smoothly (or at least non-catastrophically) as it is to say that some sort of undefined crash will occur sometime in the future. Dates and sequence of events have not been offered just possibility of dire consequences…very easy things to do, doesn’t take a whole lot of thought or creativity, etc.
Then by definition demand will not reach those estimates.
I’d suggest to go to .
You’ll find there some very interesting videos about the developing of the world population. And much much more statistical data, presented in an dynamic and interesting way. It change my view of the world (Weltbild) in some ways.
To give the gist of the lecture. World population will top out at 9 billion around 2030. Most of the families in the world got 2 children or less. Most of the people who contribute to the growth of the population are already born. But they live longer.
Go and watch. Some of the lectures can also be found at TED.
Wakefield,
Your claims about the upper midwest are fantastical. From the Department of Commerce:
Foods, feeds, and beverages represented $108.4 billion of U.S. exports in 2008, and was the second largest export growth category (end-use) for the U.S., with exports rising $24.2 billion (or 28.7 percent) over 2007. The U.S. trade surplus in foods, feeds, and beverages rose $16.8 billion to reach $19.4 billion in 2008, up from a surplus of $2.6 billion in 2007.
The top growth categories for foods, feeds, and beverages in 2008 were soybeans (up $5.6 billion), meat and poultry (up $3.7 billion), corn (up $3.4 billion), and wheat (up $3.0 billion).
Ralph says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:13 am
[Tenuc: Nuclear power stations currently produce around 15% of the worlds demand for electricity…]
Ralph: “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.
Tenuc: 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!
Ralph: You got a link for that?
In the UK, 92% of our energy supplies are non-electrical. That means nuclear power can only be a very small proportion. That is a fact. (chart 1.2)
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file11250.pdf
I am a supporter of nuclear power, but until it begins to power transport and heating requirements, it has a long way to go.
Tenuc: Here you go Ralph, the link to the 6.3% nuclear quote.
“Key World Energy Statistics 2007” (PDF). International Energy Agency. 2007.
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2007/key_stats_2007.pdf
Nuclear is already used as a motive power source for shipping – electricity produced is also being used for domestic and industrial heating. Nextgen nuclear micro-power reactors are being designed and tested which are delivered as a fuelled, ready to use sealed containerised package for small scale industrial and group domestic use.
Nuclear energy is ready to fly once electricity from fossil fuel becomes more expensive per kilowatt hour.
Now the more I read about Thorium, the more I think that Rich and GM are complete blowhards.
Richard Wakefield says:
September 10, 2010 at 6:51 am
“There are regions that are in overshoot. We send food aid to African countries. Regardless of the reason, if they cannot produce enough of their own food, they are in overshoot.
The reason is very important and has nothing to do with your mythical ‘overshoot’ conjecture. These countries are in debt to the world bank and part of the deal to pay back the debt is to use agricultural land for cash crops, like tea, coffee, out of season/exotic vegetables and fruit for the appetites of the West. The best and most productive land goes to provide luxuries for the rich – the despots running the countries prosper – the ordinary people starve and have large families to ensure at least a few will carry on their lineage.
This is a political problem, not a ‘peak’ anything or ‘overshoot’ issue.
Sigh…
Let me try to explain it once again. There are three main questions the answers to which filter out the lunatics from the sane people:
1. Is infinite growth possible? Obviously not. You concede that much. The likes of Julian Simon reject even this though, those are the most deranged type of people in the conversation and based on what I’ve seen in this thread (rejection of the 2nd law for example), plenty of them are here too. However, if we assume that those people weren’t in the conversation, and it wasn’t necessary to deal with them, even though this is not case, a clear implication of the impossibility of infinite growth is that growth has to stop at some point. Which poses the very serious question of how and when do we do that given that our whole socioeconomic system is predicated in infinite growth and will fall apart without growth, even if there is enough for everyone to be fed and clothed. This means that a complete redesign of the socioeconomic system is absolutely necessary at some point in the future, no matter how much resources are available, or the system will collapse, yet such a thing isn’t at all up for discussion right now, and given how quick people are to call you a communist, fascist and other such terms if you dare to point this out, it is unlikely it will be in the future. Which means that overshoot and collapse are virtually certain at some point.
2. Which leads to the second and third questions – if overshoot and collapse are certain, when are they going to happen? And are we in overshoot now? It is hard to say when the collapse will occur because there is so much nonlinearity and unknown variables in the system. But it is very much possible to say whether we are in overshoot now and based on that to give a ballpark figure for the time of the collapse. When predictions (and a lot of those weren’t predictions, but rather scenarios, which were conveniently labeled as predictions in order to give the appearance of “falsification” to the limits to growth) were made back in the days, such crucial parameters as the size of oil reserves, the Green revolution, etc. weren’t known. Now we have a much better information and we can be pretty certain that Peak Oil is already here and that we have or will soon have peaked with respect to a number of other non renewable resources (uranium for conventional reactors among them), that the oceans are dying, that we’re losing topsoil at disastrous rates and that we’ll be out of fossil aquifers in many of the main agricultural regions of the world in the not so distant future. We also have basically zero breeder and thorium reactors working right now, with decades of research needed to make them commercially operational, and it is much longer for fusion, if fusion is at all possible (which is not at all certain). Of course, I am going to get an avalanche of requests for references for these claims now, I am not going to waste my time doing it because it is not my job to fix the lapses in your reading discipline and general education, and in fact a lot of such references were already posted by the other. Suffice to say that based on the outlook of things right now, it is pretty much certain that whatever technofix is proposed that’s currently in vaporware, will not be available until a few decades after the onset of collapse. At which point it will be way too late – remember that we also have the social expectations for uninterrupted growth and prosperity. What happens to social order when those aren’t met and it becomes clear to everyone that they aren’t ever going to be met?
If we restricted consumption, made a concerted effort to reduce population and invested all available resources in technology development, we may have been able to come up with a technofix. But because those are precisely the things that no cornucopian ever wants to hear about, we will default to the tried and true method of using up everything as fast as possible until the four horsemen fix it for us.
“Your claims about the upper midwest are fantastical. ”
All farmed, harvested, processed and shipped to market by oil.
Jaye Bass says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:06 am
Now the more I read about Thorium, the more I think that Rich and GM are complete blowhards.
——–
It has potential. But from experimental reactor to mass production of hundreds needed to replace oil is a big gap, and time is running out.
Willis – thanks for the response to Wakefield on the links he posted! I will remember that one the next time someone tries the old bible trick on me as well.
Murray Duffin,
“the certainty of so many contributors here that there is no problem is the biggest reason that we will have a problem, because that false certainty ensures that we will not address the problem before it becomes a crisis.”
I agree that when everyone believes something will (or won’t) happen, the opposite usually does. Just like when everyone thinks house prices will go up for ever . . . well you know the rest.
However, it is not the sentiment of people on this blog that counts, but the aggregate sentiment of all human beings. And that appears to be the opposite. There is no shortage of the neo Malthusian mindset: peak oil, population bombs, ecological overshoots, mineral exhaustion; enviromental NGO’s lobbying governments, Princes touring their country pleading for a return to sustainability. You can’t open a newspaper (especially the Guardian or Independent) or tune in to a National Geographic production to hear more of the same. So your theory of sentiment is correct – its just that the conclusion that we should draw is the opposite.
GM
“Because sufficient nuclear energy isn’t available and the projected time of its availability is a few decades after it’s too late (in the best case scenario).”
What date did you have in mind?
Richard Wakefield,
“Sure it is very likely that we can produce nitrates from the N2 in the air. But at what costs? How much time and process is there to do that? Can it be done in the quantities (volume) required?”
I never said it would be easy, but the oil is not going to run out overnight. Scarcity will generate price signals that will lead to a switch towards nuclear power. Of course it will be expensive. Can it be done in the quantities required? I don’t know because I don’t know how much time we will have before oil runs out. But some people here seem to be writing us off without a fight, claiming that it is impossible for humans to go on – the writing is already on the wall and the end is nigh. I say that is an even more dogmatic stance.
The demand for fuel and food will determine the amount produced, unless government intereferes.
It’s a very simple equation.
No our system is based on price pressures and innovation to get around said price pressure. You are very sure of yourself not willing to account for any possibility of error. Usually a bad sign, a sign of religious fervor. My main hypothesis is that central planning will not result in the kind of effective change that will eventually be required. Only innovation and free trade coupled with price pressures will accomplish what needs to be accomplished.
The bit about “scenarios” was particularly specious.
Tenuc says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:37 am
The reason is very important and has nothing to do with your mythical ‘overshoot’ conjecture. These countries are in debt to the world bank and part of the deal to pay back the debt is to use agricultural land for cash crops…
_________________________________________________
Thank you for pointing that out. Despite GM calling me a “conspiracy nut” it is pretty hard to ignore the fact that not only in poor countries but also in first world countries, independent farmers, with malice aforethought, are being driven from productive land.
Here is the first hand account from Sir Julian Rose who attended a European Union committee meeting.
“Through the auspices of a senior civil servant in Warsaw, Jadwiga and I were able to address a meeting with the Brussels-based committee responsible for negotiating Poland’s agricultural terms of entry into the EU… the chair-lady said: “I don’t think you understand what EU policy is… To do this it will be necessary to shift around one million farmers off the land.. The remaining farms will be made competitive with their counterparts in western Europe.”
There in a nutshell you have the whole tragic story of the clinically instigated demise of European farming over the past three decades. We protested that with unemployment running at 20 percent how would one provide jobs for another million farmers dumped on the streets of Warsaw? This was greeted with a stony silence, eventually broken by a lady from Portugal, who rather quietly remarked that since Portugal joined the European Union, 60 percent of small farmers had already left the land. “The European Union is simply not interested in small farms,” she said.
What these corporations want is to get their hands on Poland’s relatively unspoiled work force and land resources…
Farmers, however, stand in the way of land acquisitions; so they are best removed. Corporations thus join with the EU in seeing through their common goals and set about intensively lobbying national government to get the right regulatory conditions to make their kill…. The so-called global food economy is in reality the instrument of a relatively small number of very wealthy transnational corporations.“ http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php
The World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Agriculture written by a grain trader, Dan Amstutz, VP of Cargill, is the major weapon used against the poor worldwide.
Jaye Bass says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:06 am
Now the more I read about Thorium, the more I think that Rich and GM are complete blowhards.
——–
Richard Wakefield says:
September 10, 2010 at 8:50 am
It has potential. But from experimental reactor to mass production of hundreds needed to replace oil is a big gap, and time is running out.
_______
So lobby your politicians and spread the word. Mini and micro reactors are ready to go NOW if the blasted politicians and eco-whiners would just get out of the way.
France used the exact same nuclear technology the USA abandaned safely for years (yes you can recycle)
“…The 4S (Super-safe, Small, and Simple), jointly developed by Toshiba and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), a Japanese electric power industry R&D institute, is a new-type of highly compact nuclear power generation system with a power output of about 10-megawatt (MWe). Due to its innovative design and concept, the 4S can operate without refueling for as long as 30 years, greatly alleviating operating and maintenance costs and enhancing operational safety. This feature positions 4S as a promising alternative power solution for distributed, relatively small-scale power requirements, in regions with limited or no transmission capacity.
In 2007, Toshiba initiated the process for preliminary review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the 4S system, a next-generation, super-small nuclear reactor system, with a view to securing commercialization of the system.
The targeted date of commercialization of the 4S system is after the mid-2010s.
Thank you very much again for your invitation and understanding.
Sincerely,
Hiroko Mochida
Toshiba CCO
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Toshiba%27s_Home_Nuclear_Fusion_Reactor
Good information from a commenter here at WUWT – safety type for Nuclear –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt/#comment-443999
Nuclear Recycling:
http://www.usnuclearenergy.org/PDF_Library/_GE_Hitachi%20_advanced_Recycling_Center_GNEP.pdf
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html
Vince Causey says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:23 am
I never said it would be easy, but the oil is not going to run out overnight. Scarcity will generate price signals that will lead to a switch towards nuclear power. Of course it will be expensive. Can it be done in the quantities required? I don’t know because I don’t know how much time we will have before oil runs out. But some people here seem to be writing us off without a fight, claiming that it is impossible for humans to go on – the writing is already on the wall and the end is nigh. I say that is an even more dogmatic stance.
————–
Oil won’t run out soon. You are correct about the economic consequences hitting first due to high energy costs. The likely scenario isn’t one of a punctuation collapse over night, but a prolonged seesaw drop of recession, a bit of recovery, then deep recession. As both debt and energy depletion take effect.
It won’t be equal around the world. Once China and India out bid the US for oil, then the US will start to see a supply shortfall even without oil prices going through the roof. Simply because the US won’t have the monitary ability to buy the needed oil.
This means if there isn’t oil available for economic expansion in the US, that means economic contraction in the US (and the resulting civil unrest) and hence the US’s ability to mitigate the effects of oil shortage will be straight jacketed. It’s very likely this has already started in the US and they will never recover from this recession. We will only know that in retrospect some 10 years from now.
Right now the US, and Canada for that matter, can’t even find the funds to repair aging infrastructure, inspite of record high taxes.
So the US will feel the effects of peak oil before the rest of the world, likely the EU countries too. The UK has come very close to running out of natural gas the last three winters due to significant depletion of gas fields in the North Sea. The UK now imports oil for the first time since the North Sea discoveries because those fields are in terminal decline. They may be the ones to watch in the coming years.
Mexico is another to watch carefully since their super giant field, Cantarell, is in perminant terminal decline. Once the #2 source of US imported oil. Within the next few years Mexico will be forced to import oil. The funds from Cantarell were a huge source of revenue for the Mexican Government.
PhilJourdan says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:00 am
Willis – thanks for the response to Wakefield on the links he posted! I will remember that one the next time someone tries the old bible trick on me as well.
—————-
I was under the impression that evidence is what counted in WUWT. Is that not the case with peak oil? Suppress evidence are we? Should one not be informed about the “other side” by reading and understanding the evidence presented?
Vince Causey says:
September 10, 2010 at 9:23 am
….I never said it would be easy, but the oil is not going to run out overnight. Scarcity will generate price signals that will lead to a switch towards nuclear power. Of course it will be expensive…..
___________________________-
Actually nuclear is not expensive. It is the government regulations and nuclear protestors causing time delays and legal costs that jack the cost up.
I lived in Rochester NY with nuclear power and my cost was $10/month on a one bedroom apt. I moved to Fitchburg MA and my cost for electric for a one bedroom apt. was $300. (gas heat) Talk about sticker shock, I have been for nuclear ever since.
Jaye Bass says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:13 am
Only innovation and free trade coupled with price pressures will accomplish what needs to be accomplished.
—————
Free trade and innovation will not put oil in the ground. Once flow rates drop, once ERoEI gets closer to 4:1, it won’t matter how much free trade and innovation we try to do. You can’t bypass the laws of physics.