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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Correction: ‘It will become cheaper to….’
RW says: September 9, 2010 at 1:33 am
Thanks RW, an enlightening post.
Ralph says: September 9, 2010 at 1:43 am
Thanks Ralph for crucial reminders. These issues are very difficult to put in a way that all sides can work with together. Good luck on developing this art further.
Mike Haseler says: September 9, 2010 at 1:45 am
Good reminder. But you seem to forget nuclear energy AND the future potential here w.r.t. LENR and thorium; to say nothing of even more exotic possibilities
whispered aboutnodebunkednoillustratedwell, at least, h’m, suspected.Willis Eschenbach says: September 9, 2010 at 1:56 am
Here’s a classic case of where, IMO, the one is not quite the opposite of the other – both are important considerations. Thanks Willis for a generally thought-provoking thread and posts. But your Sudan link is not telling me anything. However, my awareness of permaculture definitely supports that possibility.
Rod Gill says:
September 9, 2010 at 2:01 am
Search the web on Peak Oil, but if cheap energy is readily available, why are oil companies spending US$100 million per hole desperately drilling in extreme deep water, thru molten salt and into even more uncharted and deeper terriotories “..
And finding lots of the stuff. Then capping it (or, as in your example, attempting to) and moving on? Over and over and over again?
Do you believe that “catastrophic climate change” is the only great lie?
Peter H says:
September 9, 2010 at 2:20 am
I can’t see how, on a finite planet, there can’t but be, at some point, a limit to population and growth.”
As with most things Peter; Education, education, education.
anna v says:
September 9, 2010 at 1:16 am
To pick a nit, Newton was born and raised during the civil war and Da Vinci lived in one of the most oppressive and violent regimes of his period. Their art grew out of adversity, not leisure.
I’m not sure it will be possible to predict what sort of society would result from he near-utopia you’ve described, but I would love to find out.
Yes I know Newton was a scientist. Just thought I’d mention that.
First and foremost; these data come from the UN and IMHO should be treated with extreme caution but the point that Willis makes about population doubling together with ordinary read in the newspapers anecdotal evidence does seem to give the graphs credibility.
Speaking as a complete synic I’m assuming that the UN FAOSTAT has some sort of vested interest in making it look like some other part of the UN is doing really well with their share of grants.
The other thing is that you cannot equate lack of industrialisation with unavailability of food. The island nations mentioned surely don’t have their populations wasting away from malnourishment but it doesn’t stop their leaders expecting handouts from New Zealand.
As somebody once said you don’t have famines in democracies.
Either way I don’t think we’ll be seing any data from FAOSTAT in AR5.
Nicely done. Guess it’s time to roll out the “no doom” links… but first:
Willis, your estimates on sea water U are very short. The LAND Uranium is enough for about 10,000 years. Thorium adds another 20,000 years or so (and is presently in use in reactors). The ocean U has enough new U erode into the ocean each year to power the entire world and then some, so we can extract U as long as there is planet left. It is, functionally, infinite in lifespan. The present cost is slightly more than land based U, but well under the level needed to be effective. (About $150 / lb IIRC).
For the issue of running out of food. 2 quick things. 1) Animals eat most of it and don’t turn it to meat very efficiently. We could support about 5 x present population just by being more vegetarian. 2) We can get about a 10 x increase just from greenhouses and such. The technologies are already identified. Rice Intensification, for example, is good for a 4x at least and maybe even a 6 or 8 x gain with some work.
Nope. PLENTY of cheap energy for tens of thousands of years to come. (Modulo stupid politicians). Nuclear is very cheap (ask India) and we have a few million years of it. And getting cheaper. Several hundred years of coal. Oil took 200 years to reach this point, and IF it’s “peak oil” it takes the same time to drop down the back side. But we’ve just started finding oil at a layer of depth that was previously thought to be ’empty’. There is a whole new shell of depth to explore.
OK, first off, ag land need not be flat. Heck, you can put a greenhouse on a rocky cliff and grown vegetables at market prices. (Most high end lettuce is now greenhouse grown and much of it hydroponic. Tomatoes too.) In Saudi Arabia they have a giant greenhouse making food using desalted sea water. The aquifers are an interesting issue, but not very important really. I have some tepary beans that grow in the desert and are tasty. For greenhouses, you can make them a nearly closed system if you like. BTW, Greenhouses give about 10x the yield per acre…
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.
Um, two things. First off, that mined phosphorus does not leave the planet. It’s still here. So it just gets moved to places a bit less convenient to ‘mine’. It’s still available if we want it. Second, check out what POT Potash corp is doing in expanding mines. There are LOADS of phosphate rock still to be mined. It is just not true that it’s limited. You stop expanding when prices are too LOW. When price rise, you expand the mine. For some reason “greens” regularly get tripped up on that simple economic feedback system and assume it’s something physical. Further, there is a load of phosphate in “poo” that we don’t bother to reclaim. Ditto bones, where huge quantities go to landfills. Not gone, just waiting.
Well, we are no where near “peak agriculture”. One small example. In a Farm magazine I was reading last week there was an article on corn spacing. Planted in even 30 inch rows in most places. By going to staggered positioning, you get about 6% more yield. Only a few folks have done that as it involves changing practices, but not new equipment, so it is slowly happening. The other point in the article was that by going to 15 inch rows, you get another 6% for about 12% total gain. Almost nobody was doing that, as you needed to buy another head for the harvester with 15 inch spacing. Over the next 30 years or so as the equipment is replaced, folks may move toward that. Or maybe not. It will depend on the price of corn…
So here is an existence proof that WITH NO OTHER CHANGES you can increase corn yields by 12%, and it’s not being done because it’s not needed for most farmers.
There are similar things with most every crop. We have high yield rices that are not grown because they don’t cook up the same as traditional food preferences require. (Calrose type does not appeal to folks used to Basmatti …) There are high yield crops we don’t eat because we like something else better (sorghum cakes? buckwheat muffins? Both grow on land that’s more problematic for corn.) And there are tomatoes that grow on salty soil and with brackish water, with work proceeding on other crops too. I’ve got my eye on some perennial wheat seeds recently developed, for example. Finally, we can grow about 10 x as much algae as wood on any given acre. About 500 TONS per acre per year. We can eat it or we can feed it to cows and chickens and fish. Oh, and it grows well on sewage. It’s CO2 limited, so is best near coal fired power plants with the exhaust bubbled through the ponds.
The simple fact is that the problems facing agriculture are mostly about GLUT and not about shortage. We grow what we want, not what yields the most. Heck, I’m growing a 150 day corn this year in my garden. There are 45 day corns. I could get 3 crops instead of one if I wanted…
So please, when you look around and see food just barely in balance with population, remember that “this behaviour is by design”! We don’t grow more because we would need to throw it away at a loss from price depression.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
and that includes food…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
and there never will be…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
Archonix says:
September 9, 2010 at 3:07 am
Yes I know Newton was a scientist. Just thought I’d mention that.
Leonardo da Vinci was as well.
Everything I’ve ever read about this that relies on the figures rather than pet theories says Willis is right. The population has grown due to decreased mortality. The population will stabilise due to increased prosperity. Food production has so far outstripped population and will continue to do so. Even water supplies will support projected populations, provided such supplies are properly managed. The only “if” is that development, innovation and change be allowed to continue and grow. Hence the only chance the doom-mongers predictions will prove true is if we follow their advice and just give up. Our choice, I’d say.
To be more specific, the middle classes are better fed than the rich these days as they tend to socialise and consume more. The urban poor would also be better fed than the rich if they would consume less junkfood and make their food from fresh ingredients – healthier and cheaper.
Rod Gill says:
For peak agiriculture look back to …
Back in the days when I was into such thing I spoke to the civil servant in charge of renewables and asked why we didn’t have a renewables obligation for petroleum. But the futility of that course of action soon became very apparent when I actually did the sums – on a typical farm, around 50% of the “bio-fuel” crop needs to be used on the farm to power the machinery.
That is to say, 50% of the energy output from a farm is energy input in fossil fuels. When you then add fertilisers, herbicides, and then add to that the energy in transporting that food off farm to manufacturer, from manufacturer to supermarket, then from supermarket to home. Then add to that cost any fossil fuel used in cooking.
Well it soon dawned on me that the reality of “bio-fuel” is that we’d need some 3-7 times as much farmland as we have now just to grow the bio-fuel. At which point I realised that
food production is just another fossil fuel powered manufacturing process
Fossil fuel in, food out.
Or … No fossil fuel in, no food out to the consumer.
QED:
PEAK OIL === PEAK FOOD === PEAK HUMAN POPULATION
A totally enjoyable and informative post. People are either optimists or pessimists. Pessimists gain most column inches because they frighten the reader. Optimists are derided for their faith and hope based on common sense and experience.
Keith Battye @11.59 asks “where is Zimbabwe?”. Rhodesia used to be called the diamond in the crown of the British Commonwealth, the breadbasket of Africa. Then good governance gave way to tribalism and tyranny. Likewise Uganda. In fact every one of those countries on the LDN list are poorly governed.
It is a reality that the best way to reduce populations in LDNs is to educate the women. The men are too stuck in tradition whereas the women enjoy the freedom that comes from having an income of their own. The more affluent a society the more equal women are treated and the less children they have.
As far as food production is concerned modern farming uses less fuel and fertilizer for unit of production now than in the past. Artificial fertilizers destroy the soils biodiversity so more farmers are finding natural processes to improve soil fertility rather than using artificial fertilizers. Biochar is just one. Cattle and pastures in rotation with grain cropping is effective, profitable and managed properly increases soil fertility as well as reducing erosion. The biggest threat to food production would be the ridiculous penalising of livestock in the interest of saving the planet from AGW. The last thing we need is some city green telling farmers how to run their farms.
Have just read through some amusing comments that really ignore your facts Willis that humans are managing to feed the rapidly increasing world population despite all the doom and gloom.
Why can’t we be thankful and at least think positively of ways that man can adapt and work with nature, produce new foods and energy sources. I wondered about the gent that thought we would run out of sources of fertiliser, and the other that talked about politicians talking crap. Thought, the penny might drop, that the increasing number of humans will also produce increasing amounts of crap (fertiliser) surely enough to combine with the rubbish that they don’t eat or waste and recycle that as composted fertiliser.
The dreary tales of water shortages, lots of that to treat and recycle too, and already some countries with money are desalinating water from the ocean. and some advanced countries have been using less water to produce more food for years. Matter of education and opportunity meets need!!
We do know that the one thing that does work to decrease the rate of population increase is to improve basic living standards and access to education, so therein lies part of the solution.
Otherwise if you cripple those countries that have the ability to raise the technology and increase food production and the methods of delivery, all you are left with is natures way of controlling population, war, pestilence and starvation or,” worse still nature aided by “mad scientist”meddling in the efficiencies of control and culling, trying to play god. (the nature of man!!).
It might not be our idea to use crap as fertiliser, but the chinese have done this for centuries, water conservation and drip feeding plants, or developing new food plants that need less water, new sources of protein?. Why do some recoil at eating horses and dogs for goodness sake, when they eat cattle, rabbits, little wooly lambs or whatever.
I am sure that there will come a time when man finds to survive they need to adapt, I hope that future generations will ethically agree that eating their own is not the “only” solution, and look to other ways to limit population growth and continue to provide sufficient food, shelter and comfort to share among all.
If they can’t then the matter will be completely in the hands of nature and whatever “god” you believe in.
My two cents!!
Re peak oil:
I had an interesting interaction on a conspiracy forum with an advocate in the peak oil belief. Whilst I personally do not know IF we are reaching, or have reached, or are anywhere near reaching an actual peak oil. this person was of the belief that we are already there and global stocks have peaked.
Yet they were also of the belief that the amount of oil coming out of the leak in the Gulf of Mexico was in an amount of millions of barrels that would make the Saudi oil fields the second biggest after the Gulf of Mexico. This and the discovery of lots of other fields showed that there was LOADS of oil left that can be extracted profitable at $80 per barrel, Yet he could not see why that would prevent the peak oil being a fact now.
At $30 per barrel, we have long since passed peak oil, at $100 per-barrel we are no where near it.
I think that we do not know for certain how much oil is left, and we have to rely on corporations who also do not know for certain how much oil there is. And even if they do, (which I doubt) then how do we know that they are telling the truth about their reserves?
Keeping humans fed, educated, sheltered, entertained, healthy and comfortable right now is the best preparation for the future of humanity. In fact, it’s the only preparation, because it creates a class with high expectations. It must, of course, be a large and dominant class, not an elite. (Sorry Al and Rajendra, you’ll have to share.)
As far as predicting the future goes, it’s a bit like your grandfather pronouncing that one day there’ll be a punch-card machine in every home. Predictions and extrapolations from present conditions are mostly wrong. Probably always wrong.
Shop hard. Turn on the heating or the air conditioner, go for a drive for no reason, and generally enjoy this generation’s resources. Don’t “sustain” them for coming generations. They won’t want them.
The reason the oil companies are drilling in more and more difficult situations is that they don’t have access to the easy stuff any more. Oil is still available in large amounts in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Really large amounts. Big reserves of gas are in Russia and the stans. That is a major issue for the oil companies, but is not a good indicator of how much oil there actually is.
Presumably the people who work for the oil companies know how much oil there is. Are they getting out of the industry? My brother-in-law works for a major as a geologist. He knows what there is to find. He isn’t worried that he will be out of a job in his lifetime, though he does admit it will be increasingly gas, not oil.
Change your diet and eat a tree!
After you chew on the bark, you can use the wood to build a house!
Beavers do, and so should you!
🙂
El Ejido, Spain. Once arid and poor situated south of the Sierra Nevada and supporting mostly goats but now prosperous and diverse because of food production. Distribution of that food extends to central Europe.
Lee Kington says:
September 9, 2010 at 3:15 am
Yes… I suppose if I pick nits I should expect my nits to be picked in turn. 🙂
Disputin says: I wonder how many have actually read “An Essay on Population”? All the Rev. Malthus was pointing out is the difference between the arithmetic increase of food production and the geometric increase in population. If you increase your effort or land area you can double the food you grow,
Wrong. Just wrong. Shorter maturity crops, for example, can give 2 or 4 crops / year instead of one. Different varieties can give a double yield. See The System Of Rice Intensification, for example.
Furthermore, population is NOT exponential. It is an S shaped curve. See any biology text.
Much maligned with good cause. I’ve seen reports that the same Club of Rome folks are behind the AGW scare too. The modus operandi matches. In “Limits” they used stupid computer models to show that if you assumed exponential growth in demand with linear supply eventually a catastrophe happened. “Given these conclusions what assumptions can we draw” fits it nicely. Just bogus.
Did you know we completely ran out of natural gas in 1980? The whales are all dead now too… (I had an entire class devoted to debunking that book.)
in the sixties, taking great pains throughout to repeat that theirs were not predictions but illustrations of the mathematics.
No, they were the originators of the “projections not predictions” idea. Another way of saying “making up stuff, but not willing to be held accountable for it being terribly wrong.”
Their major problem was not allowing anything for resource substitution (like, oh, using fast growth poplar species instead of old growth forests; and using aluminum in cars instead of steel). Secondary issues were not understanding the difference between a resource a reserve and a raw material. For example, the 20,000 years of energy we can get from known deposits of Thorium sands are counted as NOTHING in their book. Finally, they allowed nothing for technological advances. So the few TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas from “tight shale” that are now flooding the market could not happen. Just foolish.
Naturally, this message was lost.
I only wish it were lost … but it lives on like all Urban Myths, never dying as more folks are sucked in by it’s broken message.
Count me as one. First, there is NO geometrical increase. It’s S shaped. Second, we can manufacture food, if need be. Trash can be turned into sugars fairly easily. No, we won’t need to do that as there is just so much land we don’t need to.
Nope. Given half a chance, folks abandon the country and move into a city. Look around. Small cities in one building. Me? I like the suburbs to country better but the other 3 people in my family want center urban. And you could fit the entire world population in London density cities in about 6 Britain sized spots. The rest of the world being completely empty. But if you want to spread out, 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. (One issue you run into is the fractal nature of coastlines, but that’s another story…) So pretty low ‘density’ in any one place.
The simple fact is that the world is astoundingly empty. You just think it isn’t because you live in a pile of other people (as most of us choose to do) and not out in the middle of Kansas or the Sahara or Alaska or the Outback or …
We could use the entire Sahara to make food if we wanted to do so. It’s just cheaper to grow food elsewhere. (Saudi is presently using the needed technology to grow food for itself, so there is an existence proof.)
The capacity of the planet may be finite, but anyone who claims to know what this “capacity” is is simply guessing and has no idea what they are really talking about. Heck, with high density housing, we could theoritically fit trillions of people on this planet, grow enough food given technological increases, and all at the same time increase GDP.
But this is all a case of “possibilities.” Truth is, no one knows what the human capacity of the planet is. With scientific development typically resulting from “necessity” and not “whim” its difficult to peg at what point our farming practices will max out at if they do indeed max out at some point.
Given any resource, its price over time drops (see Julian Simon). Peek oil/gas/food is over-hyped. Its a given at any point we will reach the maximum production of a certain commodity but this is based on economics, not on need. If oil becomes too expensive, well then we will probably switch to other sources (common sense) and the production total of oil is maxed out, but this does not create huge economic issues as stated, rather its just a gradual change from one commodity to another.
“Ian Wilson says:
September 9, 2010 at 2:05 am
….and riots over food shortages in Africa and elsewhere should be ringing alarm bells.”
These riots are nothing to do with supply, there is no shortage. Ethiopia is not the dust bowl many poeple think it is (There is a lot of food waste in Ethiopia IMO and experience, certainly in Addis Ababa). It is infact VERY fertile, one problem there is traditional farm practices, which are slowly changing, with water conservation schemes where a farmer can cultivate two main crops in a single year rather than waiting for “rains” and transport. Fuel is “expensive” and these costs are passed on to very poor consumers. My wife is Ethiopian and our family there has lost all their land the family had to corrupt Govn’t officials and now cannot raise beasts or food, there just isn’t enough space for that now.
The main problem is cost, due to imports, pressure on farmers to export (Better price), fuel and official corruption. Cost of food, if people cannot produce themselves, is outstipping incomes. There is also a trend of migration from rural areas to the city, Addis Ababa.
Perhaps this is what you all want – the mega metropolis in Star Wars that covered an entire planet.
http://www.himajin.jp/mt/ei/Coruscant.jpg
You may desire such a future – the inevitable consequence of reproductive-incontinence – but I would consider it to be hell on Earth.
Anyway, history has taught us that civilisations that cannot control their populations are always doomed to failure and extinction. Look at Teotehuacan in Central America, or Angkor Wat in Vietnam. Two of many civilisations that appear to have succumbed to famine when at the peak of their powers.
Don’t think that we are so clever that we cannot not suffer the same fate.
.
>>Ethiopia is not the dust bowl many poeple think it is. It is infact
>>VERY fertile, one problem there is traditional farm practices.
Whoa, there Patrick.
Everyone is saying we should return to traditional, sustainable farming, instead of building mono-culture mega factory farms. But that is simply not possible.
If you are campaigning for population increase, please do not let anyone campaign for Green agriculture and sustainability at the same time.
.