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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I think I stated it very clearly that I have very little (none in fact) hope that we will get our act together and fix the mess, precisely because our biobehavioral characteristics will not allow is to do so.
@ur momisugly willis
first of all oil is already subsidized and heavily which of course distorts and pricing signal in the market
second of all it’s already about 20-30 years too late
Thirdly, yes we have had scarcity before but not in your primary source of energy with a huge amount of overshoot already present. As has been pointed out already the world couldn’t build alternatives fast enough even if it wanted to in order to mitigate the losses in oil production which are coming. Evidence of this on local scales is already available.
GM seems to believe that the only salvation for humankind lies in some kind of global command economy, where our innate urges to “procreate and to consume as much as possible” would be thwarted; a global system involving “very strong action from on top” because the ignorance of the masses is so strong that “it cannot be overcome.” In order to do the job we are told that all human beings on the planet will need to be ecologically literate, and this “very strong action from the top” will ensure resources are invested into R&D, free market capitalism will be abolished. Oh yeah, and religion eradicated.
Earth to GM! It’s called communism; been there, done it, doesn’t work. Life in the Soviet Union involved waiting endlessly in queues for the most basic commodities – before it collapsed under its own weight.
But how could this be, with all those wise Soviet technocrats and bureaucrats micro managing investment in every section of the econonomy? Hmm.
Governments are currently directing precious resources into building more and more useless windfarms and solar farms. Is that an example of what we can expect from this new government business model?
But of course, GM has it backwards. Businesses exist to make a profit. Ownership of the land and mineral rights of what we call raw materials has the wonderful economic side effect of leading firms to husband their resources as efficiently as possible – far more so than any government could achieve. So basic and well understood is this economic theory, that it is in all standard textbooks on micro economics. The problem occurs when there is no private ownership. The state of the ocean fishing industry is the best known example – non ownership of the resources directs profit maximising firms to take out the maximum harvests that their vessels are able to achieve. Even environmentalists recognise this fact, which is why there is much talk about giving certain African tribes a financial stake in their native wildlife.
And it makes little difference whether individuals are ecologically literate or not – whatever that is supposed to mean; all the resource harvesting decisions are made by profit maximising firms. Individuals just respond to price signals in order to maximise their utility of any good or service available to them. If market signals a scarcity and certain goods have been removed from the market, then they won’t be able to purchase them, ecological literacy or not. If market signals that aluminium cans are in need, a price will attached to them, commercial recycling centres will spring up, and individuals will be rewarded with cash, or bonus points (at supermarkets).
If the dire fate that some have suggested lies in wait for us (and I don’t dispute that it may), then the only chance lies with the free market.
@ur momisugly Vince Causey:
1. You have learned absolutely nothing from the last 350+ posts in this thread
2. You reject centuries of accumulated knowledge and some very fundamental science simply because your brainwashed mind can’t accept its implications
3. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about
4. You’re an absolutely hopeless case
And even though you are a hopeless case, I will repeat once again (you didn’t read it when I said it before so I have to repeat it as frustrating as it is) that the difference between right and left and even between capitalism and communism is trivial compared to the difference between either of those and what a reality-based society would look like. Communists were anthropocentrics too, the ecosystem was last on their mind.
Any person who thinks that ecology doesn’t matter while markets do has lost his mind though….
Ralph says:
September 11, 2010 at 7:56 am
“Sorry Tenuc, there has to be something wrong with that report.
On page 24 is says Nuclear is 15% of electricity. On page 28, it says electricity is 16% of total energy. That means that nuclear power represents just 2.4% of total energy supply. (Much as I said.)
And there is precious little nuclear power outside electrical generation.
That pie-chart on page 6 giving total energy supply must be wrong. Perhaps the error lies in the asterisk saying ‘not including heat trade;.”
The correct figure for 2005 is that nuclear power accounted for 6.3% of world’s total primary energy supply. Here’s a link to another quote, if you found the report from the International Energy Agency too confusing:-
“In 2005 nuclear power accounted for 6.3% of world’s total primary energy supply. The nuclear power production in 2006 accounted 2,658 TWh (23.3 EJ), which was 16% of world’s total electricity production.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
Vince Causey says:
September 12, 2010 at 5:54 am
“If the dire fate that some have suggested lies in wait for us (and I don’t dispute that it may), then the only chance lies with the free market.”
Your 100% correct Vince. History shows that only a market free of interference from government can ensure mankind’s future progress. All left wing, liberal governments end up as bureaucracies with red tape and jobs for the boys replacing the freedom to take risks and get rich. Without freedom of action, mankind would only make the same progress as a bunch of sheep!
GM,
You have not even addressed any of the points I made and you retaliate by calling me names. The USSR was ineffecient and wastefull because it lacked the price signals that only a market economy can provide. It has absolutely nothing to do with being anthropocentric or not. It would have made no difference if they were controlled by enviromentalists. You throw around terms like “reality-based society,” but you have no idea what you are talking about.
I explained that private ownership of resources preserves their viability into the future much more than any other system. I explained that non ownership leads to overuse. These are basic economic facts. Yet instead of dealing with the points on their own merit you respond by calling me names, just have you have responded to other posts on this thread when you cannot refute their arguments. Your diatribes (I would hesitate from dignifiying them with the word ‘arguments’) are full of hot air, meaningless platitudes, appeals to authority, and the infantile name calling of an individual who has clearly lost the argument.
@ur momisugly vince
except the US is hardly a free market economy, all you have to do is take into account all the various subsidies and policies in place which cause massive market distortions
these include: petroleum, farming, housing, automobiles, natural gas, coal, corn based ethanol, roads, banking etc etc etc……….our entire system is every bit as distorted as many of the other systems of govt that have failed
these distortions among other side effects help keep alternatives from happening as well as seriously masking the actual reality of the situation and issues we face
furthermore a free market if it actually existed does not in any way stop or prevent an overshoot condition from occurring or forming, human nature is human nature regardless
pedex,
“except the US is hardly a free market economy, all you have to do is take into account all the various subsidies and policies in place which cause massive market distortions.”
You are absolutely right in that respect. The point I was trying to make was more to do with price signals that supply vs demand generate, and how these lead to the efficient allocation of resources. We have at the moment Government distortion of the energy market by a) direct subsidies of favoured sources of energy, b) taxation of fossil fuels in Europe via various mechanisms c) penalisation of nuclear by requiring decommisioning costs to be paid up front. You have mentioned several others – ethanol is a good example. Government distortions are causing profit maximising firms to divert food into a fuel for which no market demand exists. That is why I despair of Government solutions and reject GM’s hypothesis that we need a global communist (albeit Green) government.
“furthermore a free market if it actually existed does not in any way stop or prevent an overshoot condition from occurring or forming, human nature is human nature regardless”
Quite correct. If anything communist systems are less efficient, more wasteful of resources, and far less concerned for the environment. Much of Russia is a garbage strewn wreck.
Oil depletion is a numbers game only. More people requires more energy, and at some point the two will not be compatible.
And there is nothing we can do about it.
Reading over GM’s posts gives one the impression that he/she loathes humanity. That self hatred is a very dangerous way to think, for evolution placed us here. Peak oil is a vehicle to achieve the destruction of civilization in the same way Co2 is being used to achieve the same end. It is part and parcel of fear manipulation. No hard evidence as the future is unforeseeable. GM must be a LOT of fun at social gatherings. Let us move forward and not backward.
It a common meme but every ‘green’ you ask will pretend otherwise. Like a ‘Jo@Abess’ they will say, we don’t belief in involuntary culling just you have to wish to end the species yourself. But which species, one asks? It’s the white, western, ‘patriarchal’ man that must go. O don’t worry, were ‘disappearing’ but lets see how you get on without us. No innovation, no engineering, no thinking.
I believe that Malthus’ principles require a state of static resource usage equilibrium, a condition that has, as yet, never been achieved in the modern world. Up to now, we have always been able to find new, untapped sources of energy. However, there is a body of disquieting evidence and logic indicating that this may not always continue to be possible. The end of abundance may not happen tomorrow, but it does appear to be on the horizon.
If one created a closed habitat for rats and provided only enough food to properly feed, say, 100 healthy rats, I believe Malthus would expect the population to increase until it reached a limit above 100 defined by the maximum number of sickly and malnourished animals that could possibly survive and reproduce while sharing their limited food resource.
Of course adding a few cats to the experiment would probably force a lower population of the more healthy rats required to escape the predators. That predator population would also be limited by the number rats they could catch.
Spector says:
September 13, 2010 at 2:12 am
You neglect the difference between rats and humans. If you put too many rats into a small space, their population peaks at some limit. If you put too many Dutchmen into a small space, they put up dikes and make themselves more space … and this same ability to transcend limits that animals cannot overcome is true in all aspects of life, not just space. You put too many cows into a field with their little water, and their population is limited by the water supply. You put a bunch of Israelis into a land with too little water, and they build desalination plants and produce their own water …
And that’s the flaw in Malthus’s logic, and yours. Humans are not like other animals, as you both seem to assume. Animals are limited by their abilities, where humans are only limited by their imagination.
I have a National Geographic magazine that talks about the potential of a new crop from Japan and China that could perhaps become a major crop. That new crop barely known out side Asia was Soy. The magazine dates from the 1960’s. We are domesticating one new species every two weeks. Any one of them could be as valuable as soy.
We have a salt water irrigated grain that yields 2 tons a hectare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distichlis_palmeri
we have a salt tolerant sugar crop being domesticated. The only salt water palm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nypa_fruticans
We have the seedling of the Boab tree, a drought tolerant tree from Australia. At 4 weeks the seedling is edible like a carrot with leaves that can be used as a salad green. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_gregorii Africa, Madagascar and India have related species that are being checked soon. This domestication occurred 2001.
http://www.ausbushfoods.com/oldmag/news/Boab.htm
The blue fin tuna has been domesticated with captive spawning and abundant egg production, so much the had to bury most of the spawn. Tank cultivation is developing worldwide. http://www.cleanseas.com.au/main/home.html
I could go on and on but its unnecessary. Domestication and large scale farming of many species is now routine and organised.
Maybe that should be a post not just a comment. Can someone tell me how to do that?