Just one year to go to check on the accuracy of this prediction, claimed by warming proponent George Monbiot in 2002.
Within as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.
Guardian. Why Vegans Were Right All Along.
And it wasn’t just eating meat, that Monbiot was demanding we ditch – “vegetarians who continue to consume milk and eggs scarcely reduce their impact on the ecosystem”. As the title puts it, “Vegans were right all along”. Give up meat, eggs, cheese, butter and milk, or we’ll all be starving within as little as ten years, he warned.
…
Monbiot is not a racist. He is not even a neo-Malthusian. But in his eagerness to impose austerity on everyone, he gets taken in by the arguments of those who are. It’s why he earnestly believed the patently ludicrous claim that it took 100,000 litres of water to make 1 kilogram of beef, a risible claim that anyone not ideologically blinded would instantly dismiss as nonsense, as he himself was forced to do as 2012 approached.
It is the anti-immigrant and anti-human agenda of the people who warn of “scarce resources” and “too many people” that is the real danger, not the idle bravado and loose chatter of a bunch of guys on an internet chat-room.
More here at Haunting the Library
h/t to Andrew Bolt
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Gentlemen
Regards Mr. Monbiot’s claim we are in a “crises” due to a “depletion of both phosphate fertilizer”. Not true. We currently have a 100 year supply of minable phosphate ore.
The problem is not one of excessive resource “depletion”. Our current problem is that we have not invested in sufficient R&D to increase the conversion of phosphate ore to phosphate fertilizer and/or to enable mining of currently un-minable phosphate resources.
Between 1936 to approximately ~1990 major advances in the production of fertilizer were developed by the United State’s Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) at its Fertilizer Development Center in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. By the early 1990’s 80% of the world fertilizer was produced with TVA technology. Unfortunately, Congress defunded the TVA Center as a cost saving measure. Consequently, major advancements in commercial fertilizer production came to an abrupt halt. A few, very underfunded, research centers have survived; but, none have matched the productivity of the TVA labs.
Currently only about 30% if mined phosphate ore makes to agricultural fields. The potential for improving production yields and/or enabling the processing of currently un-minable sources is enormous. Examples include the processing of ores with high concentrations of calcite and dolomite. I was working in this area at the time the TVA Center was closed.
I’d love to re-activate the TVA lab and win the Green Revolution a 2nd time. (It was fun the first time round). Figure were talking a 250 man team with roughly 40-50 million/year in operating cost plus say 250-500 million in capital cost over 10 years – capital for commercial-scale proof of concept and commercial acceptance by private companies. Problem solved in 10 years with fast track – 20 years with slow track and/or setbacks.
Solving the problem is a heck of a lot better than whining that “others” must sacrifice. I can’t stand defeatist and Eco-fascist like Mr. Monbiot’s. Just solve the production problems for Christ sake
Regards,
Kforestcat
P.S. Some inroads to improving phosphate production are ongoing. Results and commercial viability to be seen.
george – u almost kept my trust when u wrote the following, despite including some extraordinary attacks on people who are properly sceptical about any scientific hypothosis or theory:
25 Nov 2009: Guardian: George Monbiot: Pretending the climate email leak isn’t a crisis won’t make it go away
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
george – it was u more than anyone in the MSM who convinced me that 2,500 independent climate scientists had independently studied independent data and come to the same conclusion – namely that humans had added too much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and this had resulted in an unprecedented warming of the globe that would be catastrophic in the near future unless we reduced our own carbon dioxide emissions.
george – weren’t u embarrassed by noam chomsky’s remark in his “death knell for the species” interview: ” There was an article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, you know – not a radical rag exactly. They’re running through the new Republicans coming to Congress and they’re worried about them.” don’t u and other CAGW gatekeepers constantly tell the public that big business is against doing anything about CAGW?
george – if big business was against CAGW and the actions u say are necessary, why aren’t they sponsoring the sceptical blogs?
george – why weren’t u embarrassed when michael mann’s hockey stick eliminated past warming? not having had a scientific education, i actually believed mann’s graph took into account such periods and properly accounted for them.
needless to say, u lost my trust.
DJ says January 24, 2011 at 2:02 pm :
“I have steak credits for sale.”
What a wonderful “pyramid” once fully formulated let me in on it! – Please!
My dog turns 7 today. He gets a T-bone.
Steven Kopits says:
Rising food prices will make Americans eat perhaps a bit less, or a bit less well. For the global poor, say Haitains or peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, it can be quite a problem. Increasing food prices will–indeed, are–putting them into an existential bind. They may simply eat less, when they do not yet even eat enough.
The solution then, is to make sure the unfortunate have more money. Then they can afford to pay more for food.
Sub-Saharan Africa is capable of feeding itself off its own resources. But they desperately need political and economic stability to do so. Me going vegan won’t help them one little bit while they are ruled by dictators and try economic policies that fail (collectivism and subsistence farming are the dangers, not the solutions).
Not enough people in the world are literate. The solution is to teach them, not for us to stop reading.
Too many people beat their wives. The solution is not for me to divorce.
Too many people are starving. The solution is not for me to join them.
DJ says:
January 24, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I have steak credits for sale.
I promise not to eat a 12oz filet mignon in exchange for a $32 “Steak & Trade” coupon. The way it works is: You send me $32, and I send you a coupon which allows you to eat a 8-12oz filet mignon steak (the cost of the steak to you is additional). Should you choose an alternative cut of beef, the coupon value will be increased accordingly to a 10% maximum.
Proceeds from the Steak & Trade program will be used to fund the purchase of renewable foodstuffs, such as truffles or saffron. (We are also planning on sequestering CO2 bound in grape juice in 750ml bottles long term at a later date)
Although I have yet to formalize the system, I am accepting deposits for the coupons, and as soon as I have them printed they will be forwarded. Please note that they will be sold only in blocks of 10.
We need to get together. I have arrangements with some local monasteries and convents to sell ‘infidelity offsets’.
100,000 litres of Evian to produce a kg of beef – now that would be a problem.
Hugo M – so are we firing the ‘phosphat’ into space then? I can see a problem with mineral leech into the oceans but the only truly limited resources we have are Helium which can escape into space and radioactives which are naturally decaying and occasionally broken down.
Simple solution to equalizing humidity (hence rainfall) around the globe…
Raise cattle in regions with excessive rainfall, then ship the cattle to regions with damaging droughts….and release the sequestered moisture by grilling.
We could restore the flora and fauna of countless areas decimated by centuries of drought. Too bad the Anasazi aren’t around to witness the restoration of their land.
We could call it “geo-cowgineering”.
He wasn’t wrong.
His just had the wrong mechanism–and villains.
Now, If we continue to use arable land to feed our automobiles, we’ll all starve in (insert time limit here)…
So Monbiot’s t-shirt reads “fight poverty not war”, I wonder if on the back it reads “without using electricity”?
And what exactly are you doing to fight poverty, George? Writing “to raise awareness” is my guess.
“Monbiot is not a racist. He is not even a neo-Malthusian. ”
I have my doubts about the accuracy of these statements, but even if they are correct, they don’t rule out the obvious and overriding explanation: Monbiot is an idiot.
100,000 kilos of water to produce a cow? Sounds reasonable. Oh, a KILO of beef ahaha hahaha! Imbecile. Well, he has an MA in Zoology according to Wiki so who am I to laugh? Hang on… an MA? in Zoology? Hmmm… I may be a brain dead BSc Biochem grad but shouldn’t that be an MSc? I think I see the problem here… Master of the Art of Bullshit maybe.
Just one year to go to check on the accuracy of this prediction, claimed by warming proponent George Monbiot in 2002.
Haunting the Library writes:
“Within as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.”
Well, we have right now skyrocketing food prices, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Just a few graphs:
Food price index:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=food-price-index&months=180
Sugar:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=sugar&months=180
Beef:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months=180
Chicken:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=chicken&months=240
Wheat:
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat&months=120
Maize(corn):
http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=corn&months=120
Etcetera…
Now see the results.
See what happened in Tunisia…
New dawn for Tunisia
Tunisian Revolution First in Arab States for Decades – Democracy NOW!
And Algeria…
Riots erupt across Algeria against prices, unemployment
Now unrest is spreading in North Africa like fire:
11 Killed, Hundreds Hurt In Regional Protests
To me it seems that Monbiot was right.
“Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water.”
I challenge that statement on the grounds of common sense.☺
“Well, we have right now skyrocketing food prices, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression.”
It’s amazing what foolish use of land for biofuels and cold weather will do.
“It is the anti-immigrant and anti-human agenda of the people who warn of “scarce resources” and “too many people” that is the real danger, not the idle bravado and loose chatter of a bunch of guys on an internet chat-room.”
Hear hear, beware of any misanthrope who preaches of the ‘human viral infestation’. We are nature’s Beings. Digging up the carbon and putting it back from whence it came; interred by the plant life in a suffocating spiral of death. Until Gaia created human with a brain to create fire and burn. Replenish the air with this trace compound and green the planet again. Halleluliah! Irony overload, goodnight.
@ur momisugly From Peru
Are you serious? Over a ten year period the price of every single commodity on earth has fallen in real terms WHEN YOU INCLUDE INFLATION!
In ten years from now it will be the same, all commodities in real terms will be cheaper beacuse there will be more than ever. There is more oil now than there was in 1975 when I was told as a youngster that we would have no oil left in 30 years. Don’t underestimate the children of Gaia!
Smooth the data, profiteering comes in waves.
K?
“Sonya Porter says:
January 24, 2011 at 1:56 pm”
Although large areas of land are in flood or have recently flooded, Australia is still the second most driest continent on the planet. There have been many scare stories about water running out for as long as I can recall. Statements like these could have a basis in the fact that ~1% of all water on the planet is naturally occuring fresh water.
“From Peru says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:04 pm”
People who are cold, hungry, unemployed, getting poorer, being charged more and paying more taxes, largely due to political corruption, are very usually angry people.
Students/unemployed in London, unemployed in Ireland/Spain/Portugal/Greece/Italy etc etc…EU politicians better watch out.
No one would have listened to him if he’d said 100 years instead of 10. That’s what alarmism is all about … they have to lie to get attention.
All of this CAGW nonsense reminds me of the famous “polywater scare” back in the early 1960’s! Very similar = panic mentality, widespread research, and eventual skepticism with ultimate debunking of the concept.
This is a very short article worth reading:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html
“Over the next several years, hundreds of papers appeared in the scientific literature describing the properties of what soon came to be known as polywater. Theorists developed models, supported by some experimental measurements, in which strong hydrogen bonds were causing water to polymerize.
Some even warned that if polywater escaped from the laboratory, it could autocatalytically polymerize all of the world’s water.”
If anyone wasn’t convinced by now, this kind of rubbish is in fact the end game of the entire CAGW enterprise. Monbiot’s statements are no less outrageous than Hansen’s recent screed about climate change for the Chinese, or any of the other rot-gut press releases we’re treated to on a daily basis. All of the billions being spent funding the Climate Industry is not about research and science but about fundamentally transforming our society and forcing us to surrender our freedoms. If we don’t fight this now, it will, I fear, be too late once laws start being passed banning everything from light bulbs, fuels for powerplants, food people think is bad for us, and…wait, that’s happening already!!
richard verney says:
January 24, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Anthony
You have recently published a number of articles maskerading as research which demonstrates how these propagandists (for they are not scientists) are anti-human. The nub of the CO2 issue is that if we adopt the proposed cure (to halt nearly all CO2 emissions within the next 30 to 40 years), this will result in hundresds of thousands if not millions of deaths and will condemn most of the developing world to live in abject povery without electrity for at least many generations to come. What could be more anti-human than that?
=================
I really can’t see how the economic collapse they are trying to engineer could be limited to just millions of deaths. I rather think we’re talking billions, here.
wws says:
January 24, 2011 at 1:40 pm
_________________________________________
How true, but there needs be an urgency to their collective message.
They know their black flame burns short.
Patrick Davis says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Aww…you beat me to it!
But Patrick is absolutely right. Go to the UN website it is all right there. I haven’t visited recently but if memory serves the estimate is +11% of Earth’s surface is arable and we have affected just a tad over 3% due to agricultural endeavors / food production. More often than not people go hungry due to political corruption, hoarding despots, and corporate conglomerates. I’ll try to post the link if I can find it quick…gotta go.