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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Yarmy says:
“As for the Irish, ‘a great part of the population should be swept from the soil.’”
So are we back to Jonathan Swift and “A Modest Proposal”?
Willis,
Population growth and food production do not have to be geometric or arithmetic but they will be roughly the same. They are closely linked because people grow food for their own consumption – directly or indirectly (by feeding cattle for example). More people, more food. The link between population growth and food production is similar to the link between temperature rise and CO2 increase, although the time lag of the former is much shorter 🙂 (couldn’t resist).
Great work Willis. Enjoy reading your thoughts.
Malthus did not know that mechanized farming would change food production. He was just another unfortunate soul whose theory was wrecked by the future.
Vince Causey says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:36 am
The article refers to thousands of papers, not just those of Kudryavtsev. It has already been shown that oil can be manufactured in laboratories using enormous temperatures and pressures, and the chemical reactions are well understood. Of course, none of this proves oil is abiogenic – it merely shows it is chemically possible.
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Get and read the book Oil 101, it explain why oil must be biogeneic.
Let me guess .. that upturn in LDC calories in the past 12-15 years is due the the proliferation of McDonalds restaurants into LDC countries.
“It’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people” – Detective Thorn, Soylent Green
Sorry, I could not help it after reading the article.
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.
It was a bit more than simply destabilizing the economic/political system that organized agriculture in the USSR. The famine was most certainly pre-designed, the last scraps collected by armed militia, hiding food was punished by imprisonment and forced labor, people were prevented fleeing by barbed wire fences and the food collected this way was sold on the international market. That’s what happened, a fine act of social engineering.
It has nothing to do with Malthus, as neither the Bengal famine of 1943 or the post-war German famine, when infant mortality went up to a horrible 60%.
It is the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-51 that comes closest to a Malthusian catastrophe. Population of the Irish isle even now is smaller than it used to be in 1840, at the same time there are about seventy million people worldwide claiming Irish origin.
Willis Eschenbach says:
September 9, 2010 at 12:33 pm
And since food growth around the planet (mechanized or not) has kept up with population growth, I fear that Malthus’s theory is entirely and completely wrong. Population growth is not geometric, nor is food production growth arithmetic. Not sure how much wronger someone could be, but Malthus based his theory on two points, and both were wrong.
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That food growth was possible only because of the growth in oil production, something Malthus couldn’t possibly known about.
It is interesting that food production in China is getting so far behind that they are buying land in African countries to grow food for them.
GM says:
September 9, 2010 at 4:25 am
Oh, please. What does “overshoot” mean on a farm? Does it mean that we are eating next year’s crops? And how does that work?
And why on Earth would things be best at the moment of “maximum overshoot”? My experience on a ranch is that as soon as you start to overload the production of your land, you start to lose yield. Things don’t get better and better until “maximum overshoot”, whatever that might be. That’s a fantasy from an armchair warrior. Things get worse immediately, as soon as you put in too many cattle or plant corn too densely.
So while you may be an expert on “ecology”, you desperately need practical experience. You seem to be simply parroting what you have read about Malthus. Which is no surprise. You are amply demonstrating what I said above, “He’s like your basic horror film villain, incapable of being killed even with a stake through the heart at a crossroads at midnight.”
However, if you’d like to defend your claims, please define for us what “overshoot” means in terms of food. Next, let us know how you are measuring overshoot, so that you are able to determine that we are currently in “maximum overshoot”. Then provide some evidence, not further claims but evidence, that things improve during overshoot and are therefore best at the point of “maximum overshoot”.
Once you have that evidence in hand, you will have a viable hypothesis. Until then, you are just repeating meaningless Malthusian claims in the finest Ehrlichian tradition.
Pascvaks says:
September 9, 2010 at 4:53 am
I disagree entirely. A whole host of folks read WUWT, from all sides of every idea and ideal. For every poster there is a hundred lurkers. We’re getting the word out, and to me, that is always an agent of change.
Tenuc says:
September 9, 2010 at 11:57 am
No-one knows how much oil and natural gas the large areas of shale can produce and the experts estimates vary widely. The late Lee Price, who spent most of his career researching the Bakken shale, estimated the yield could be as high as 50% of reserves, while values presented in ND Industrial Commission Oil and Gas Hearings have ranged from a low of 3 to 10%.
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50% is not possible for Bakken. Even light sweet crude deposits give up only 40-60% with high porosity. The official USGS figure for Bakken is about 1% of the deposit over it’s life span.
You need to understand, all who question peak oil, it’s not about what’s in the ground. It’s about flow rate and ERoEI. Soon as a deposit costs more energy than you get out of the deposit, it’s game over for that deposit. In the 1960’s EroEI was about 100:1. Today it’s 20:1. The Alberta tar sands is 6:1 (their number) for extraction and production at site, not including local infrastructure and down stream refining and transport. 4:1 is the break even for society.
Flow rate is also very important. If the decline rate of older fields is greater than the extraction rate of new fields, then we are in an over all terminal decline. No matter how much is in Bakken, or the Arctic or in the “oil” shales of Colorado (It’s not oil, it’s kerogen).
Soon as net available oil is smaller than demand, then countries will out bid others for that oil.
Enneagram says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:53 am
During WWII Germans synthesized fuel from mineral carbon and water.
July 2009 worldwide commercial synthetic fuels production capacity is over 240,000 barrels per day (38,000 m3/d), with numerous new projects in construction or development.
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That process is a negative ERoEI. It costs more energy to make that fuel than you get out of it. Society runs on NET energy, not gross energy.
@ur momisugly Patrick Davis.
Many Toyota Land Cruisers as well. Hard to gain a feel for an entire country in only one month, I agree. I was very surprised by the amount of food present (given the recent famine in Ethiopia back then) and the high relative number of expensive cars. Mercedes in Addis, Land Rovers and Land Cruisers in the country. Fiats, yes of course.
I guess the point was there was a lot of money in Ethiopia even during the famine. Food could easily have made its way to the poor and starving, in a Mercedes or a Fiat. But what drives famine is not a lack of food but a lack of money by the poor who are suddenly left with nothing. There will always be more food than compassion to share it.
If widespread starvation does happen it is not due to a lack of food. Just do a 10% reduction in the arms race like was done in the 1990s and you have lots of money to do lots of cool projects like provide clean water, sanitation etc. One thing that the Malthus types always seem to “forget” is that if population is a real problem just raise the standard of living and the population growth rate drops or actually goes negative. Raising the standard of living doesn’t mean up to our level and certainly not with our resource consumption level. Just enough clean water, sanitation, food and shelter would be enough in most places.
This is what I wrote before in this same thread, worth repeating:
William R Catton, who advises to read his book which he says is the real authority, wrote a paper on “the problem of denial” which, inter alia, clearly affirms AGW.
Ralph says:
September 9, 2010 at 10:03 am
Think it cannot happen again? Take a look at Rhodesia. Breadbasket of Africa in the 1950s. Change the political system, and the place is now starving. The problem being, the greater the world population, the more will starve to death.
Place (Zimbabwe ex South Rhodesia) is not starving. It had big potential for starvation but thanks to UN, US, EU et al. help did not starve.
Richard Wakefield,
“That food growth was possible only because of the growth in oil production, something Malthus couldn’t possibly known about.”
Eureka! Something happened that an expert couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Do you see a pattern emerging here?
Richard Wakefield,
“Get and read the book Oil 101, it explain why oil must be biogeneic.”
I don’t want to buy the book. Can you summarise in 2 sentences why oil must be biogenic?
Richard Wakefield,
“4:1 is the break even for society.”
Why 4:1 and not 2:1 or 3:2?
Richard Lakefield says ” …food production in China is getting so far behind that they are buying land in African countries to grow food for them”.
Is this because China is facing a shortage of food, or an excess of capital that now allows them the luxury of having other countries grow their food more cheaply than China could grow it themselves?
This seems to be the way of the world. Work hard, get rich, get everyone else to work for you. Get fat and complacent. The people you hired are one day richer than you. They start the next cycle.
A fat and complacent China. Now that could lead to a food crisis…
Ralph That has been true of the Western world, but it has not been tried and tested in the Islamic world. Islam promotes reproductive incontinence, as a method of dominating a region, through demographic saturation.
It’s true that some islamic leaders have made such statements, but facts are that it has indeed been “tried and tested” in the Islamic world, and with great success: The fertility rate in several of the largest islamic countries is plummeting. Most notably, it’s down to 1.7 in Iran, due to very efficient government-initiated family planning. Perhaps even more remarkable: The fertility rate in the vast islamic country Indonesia is now at 2.28 and will presumably drop below the 2.1 level in a few years.
I suggest that you inform yourself better before you spread BS the next time.
The problem can be summed up in a few graphs:
Crop yields: http://blog.sustainablog.org/wp-content/files/2009/08/cornwheat1.jpg You can see the start of the green revolution. You can also see that the improvement in yields is still linear even after that.
http://www.population-growth-migration.info/images/Past-World-Population2.gif
You can plainly see, that population growth is exponential.
Now this is a big old world, and linear production can continue to be higher than exponential demand for a long time – but I will GUARANTEE that over time exponential will always triumph over linear. Always.
Now there are people who say that population has an S shaped curve, but don’t say why it has an S shaped curve. Under animal populations, it is because they run short of some resource or other (like food or water or breeding sites).
Some humans may choose not to be fertile. Over the long-run their numbers will reduce (even if just proportionatly), and that section of humanity that chooses to be fertile will overrun them. You can see this in action is many contended areas around the world such as the Balkans, Northern Ireland, South Africa etc etc.
Peak Oil is also another problem mentioned. If you mention “Peak Oil” and “Reserves” in the same breath, you simply don’t understand the issue. It’s a production issue, not a reserve issue. Imagine I found out an infinitely renewable resource that could be used to power my car – would I be happy? Of course! Now let’s imagine that infinitely renewable resource is actually your saliva. I have somewhere to go – tomorrow – it’ll take 15 gallons – of your saliva – fill ‘er up!
Oh…and one final graph…
http://www.raisethehammer.org/static/images/fig5.jpg
@ur momisugly vince causey
4:1 is about as low as we can go and still have enough leverage to enjoy all the power oil allows us to have or any energy source for that matter
it all boils down to leverage, using 1 barrel of oil to get 4 back provides enough extra energy or leverage to transport, process, distribute, and consume all the products oil is used for and still have enough margin to make it all work
The higher the leverage the better and we have for a long time now enjoyed some high levels of energy return on energy invested. This is what makes any energy source valuable. This is why oil became so prominent over coal or wood, not just its handling properties but its return on energy used to be quite high.
even if the abiotic oil theory is bunk, there’s an awful lot we don’t know about porosity, and paths to recoverability. Campbell once told me, if it (abiotic theory) is right, then all of geology is wrong. Interesting idea. Geologys only been around for a couple of hundred years, why shouldn’t it be wrong? Geology certainly has shifted its ground (ha ha) When I was at school Geology was quite clear that oil only came out of on end of a syncline, found in Saudi, Texas, one or two other places. Obviously a lot more synclines around these days. AGW has been around for over 100 years, and its wrong.
He will do it and then you are going to say “Ugh, I wanna see evidence, not mere assertions, give me peer-reviewed articles”. It has happened to me before here.