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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Haunting the Library quotes Monbiot as writing:
” … Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers.”
Umm. Are these virtual acquifers with virtual water? Must be, if they have been “abstracted” by farmers. No worries there: virtual or ideal abstracted aquifers with virtual or ideal abstracted water never run dry.
According to wikipedia: “In philosophical terminology, abstraction (noun) is the thought process wherein ideas[3] are distanced from objects.”
Perhaps he meant “extraction” ?
Couldn’t find it at UN this time (?), link is for Wikipedia (I know, apologies):
Arable land as a percent of total land mass (excluding Antarctica…duh) is just shy of 20%.
Utilization just a hair over 7%.
This is from the World Soil Resources Report done in ’94 so it’s also dated. I don’t have time to research this better…guess I shoulda kept my mouth closed (or hands in my pockets).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land
The article from ‘Haunting the Library’ is an example of guilt by association. The fact that someone who agrees with Monbiot that veganism is a good idea also thinks that immigration is a bad idea is irrelevant to Monbiot’s arguments, which should be challenged on their own merits. The article quotes the Southern Poverty Law Center claiming that something is a ‘hate group’. The SPLC says that about everyone they disagree with. Climate skeptics should be skeptical about linking to this kind of thing.
@ur momisugly From Peru
You need to put those graphs in real terms… in case you hadn’t noticed the US dollar has taken a hammering in the last couple of years due to excessive “quantitative easing.” A few years back the Aussie dollar was at 50-60 US cents for instance, and now it is hovering around parity. Therefore in Aussie dollar terms you can slash those prices (for the last year) in half.
It’s all a question of perspective. The US dollar is simply devaluing on the world stage which is the least painful way to ease the burden of your international debt woes. For more information see the likes of John Mauldin:
At least the USA has a currency it can devalue… no such luck for the likes of Italy, Spain, Portugal etc who are all tied in to the Euro. To paraphrase Alan Harper in 2.5 men:
“They are a so screwed!”
Monbiot with his head in the bowl looking for corn to recycle. He should watch out, that seat could fall on his head and it get it stuck in there.
CRS, Dr.P.H. mentioned the polywater scare:
“Some even warned that if polywater escaped from the laboratory, it could autocatalytically polymerize all of the world’s water.”
Sounds like Vonnegut’s Ice Nine.
And just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being terror-stricken about the possibility!!
I think this is fun! 100000 liters per kilo? A calf grows to 1600lb in two years. That is about 1 kilo per day. Hmm that is about 1 Liter or a bit more than a quart per second. They must be hooked up to hoses then?
Sorry, too funny. I spent two weeks on a dairy farm. Don’t remember the cows being hooked up to hoses except to be milked twice a day…
“Obviously the only predictions that one will never have to apologize for will be those for a time frame much greater than the lifespans of any potential responders.”
There is another place where the AGW crowd has failed. They claim that the current flat temperature trend is meaningless because it takes 30 years for a trend to become meaningful. But it turns out that you can compensate for several elements of variability in the data such as ENSO, thereby reducing the variability and making the data statistically meaningful in only 15 years. Well, we are now just two years from having a “meaningful” flat trend according to the definitions of the warmers themselves. In 2013 Tamino is going to have to eat crow.
“Gaylon says:
January 24, 2011 at 8:31 pm”
Whats the possiblity that the info you refer to has been “disappeared”. I mean, its not like it has not happened in recent years eh?
JAS says:
January 24, 2011 at 5:34 pm
@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!”
Nope. Peru and Chile were greatly favoured by the rise in metal commodities,because our main activity is metallic mining. If the “true” value of commodities were really “falling”, then my country would not have benefited at all from the commodity boom.
But (big but) food prices are not metal prices. Higher metal prices stimulate investent and mining-industrial development creating wealth. Higher food prices create poverty, by reducing the buying power of the people, specially the poor people.
“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.”
You could not escape so easily from the laws of physics. Resources deplete with time. That is an unquestionable fact.
“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!”
In the USA oil production had been falling steadily from the 1970s. Global oil production has been in a plateau since 5 years ago.Oil production from existing fields is dropping at 6% rate per year. New fields could not offset such a decline.
See here:
Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/GOF_decline_Article.pdf
“Smooth the data, profiteering comes in waves.”
It seems that what comes in waves are the oil and food shocks. In 2007-2008 there was a food and oil crisis, that was olnly stopped by the even bigger financial crisis that caused a collapse in worldwide demand. Now that the demand is recovering, the food and oil prices are skyrocketing again.
Again, seeing the news seems to give reason to Monbiot: the present growth is unsustainable, as in this cartoon:
http://s289.photobucket.com/albums/ll225/Fmagyar/?action=view¤t=ExponentialFunction2.jpg
Bulldust says:
January 24, 2011 at 8:37 pm
To paraphrase Alan Harper in 2.5 men:
“They are a so screwed!”
========================================
Never do that.
Todd says:
January 24, 2011 at 3:47 pm
But think of the Moral Superiority we will have!! 😉
========================================
You are correct. We can eat and drink moral superiority and live long and prosperous lives.
Molon Labe says:
January 24, 2011 at 1:45 pm
“Maybe he will be right because it will be too cold to grow crops.”
Plenty of crops can be grown in cold climates – we’ll just have to get used to eating plenty of swede!
Monboit’s, and other alarmist claims have always come down to there being too many people on the planet. He could always take the next step—–. None of them do.
Jeremy – a couple more cracking quotes for you..
‘As everything which can be invented, has been invented, we ask the government to disband this office.’ Head of the UK Patent Office, 1896.
‘There may be a worldwide market for perhaps four or five computers.’ Can’t remember who said it – but it was in 1946.
The trouble is – these eco-nuts get listened to by governments – and just look at where that’s got us..!
beesaman says:
January 24, 2011 at 2:15 pm
You are so right!
Monbiot, is like them all, an over-privilged middle-class privately educated arrogant snob, who probably has no need to work due to his background, he does so because he wants to. It’s amazing, I’d just like to hear one who started from humble beginnings,who worked their own way to success & financial independence, & then make the stand they do. There are some, but most of those are in the entertainment business, so they don’t count as they like to pull the ladder up after themselves as their egos are so huge! Why is it that these people make ooodles of dosh, live in absolute luxery with a home in every town all over the world, then lecture everyone else on the folly of our profligacy?
Mr Monbiot already withdrew his support for veganism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation
Monbiot is a journalist
I can understand politicians or scientists predictions being questioned but journalists?
Look after the birds… thus the guano… thus the fertiliser!
I don’t really understand why the word racist is relevant (even if it is used to say he is not racist) or where the anti-immigrant charge comes from.
What did I miss?
“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…”.
Based on current usage, poor efficiency, greed, corruption, etc., we have already passed the optimum population for this planet. (http://www.optimumpopulation.org/) I consider the inexorable rise in human numbers, and the lack of progress in attitudes and behaviour, to be far more scary that the infinitesimally remote possibility that the AGWists may be right.
Sorry about previous rather facetious comment.
I notice there are several comments from people who have kept cattle. I had some cattle in Australia; I don’t remember having to force-hose water down their gullets! Monbiot’s quoted 100,000 litres per kg of meat is so ludicrous that I can’t even laugh at it. They also fertilised the land at the same time as ‘watering’ it.
Well – I tell you what – I’M going to make a prediction. Hold me to it.
By 2015 – perhaps sooner – we will be getting major power cuts here in the UK.
Why..?
The EU wants us to shut our ‘polluting’ power stations.
Due to the last (Labour) government listening without question to the ‘green’ lobby, we are fifteen years behind on building new nuclear power stations.
The present government (‘We are going to be the greenest ever..’ – I wonder if David Cameron realised the ‘other’ meaning of that word – i.e. naive..??) is still blundering on with wind farms – under the delusion that the wind will suddenly ‘play ball’ – and blow when demand is high – unlike what it has done for four of the last eight weeks – exactly the opposite. This has created the farcical situation where, early in December 2010, demand exceeded 60000MW for the first time ever – at precisely the time when an anticyclone covered the British Isles – and as a consequence wind power achieved a massive 0.1% of demand. At no time in the last two months has wind power delivered more than 2.5% of demand – yet the Department of Energy and Climate Change (yeah – I know) want to be generating THIRTY PERCENT of our electricity from ‘renewable sources’ by 2030. All of which we are subsidising in our energy bills.
So – you read it here first…
I fully concur, that Doomsday mongers like Mr. Monbiot are always wrong, as they don’t understand the resilience and adaptiveness of democracy and free markets.
However, before you fly into space laughing about the 100.000 l of water to produce 1 kg of beef, let me tell you, that an internationally recognized average is approximately 16.000 l / kg of boneless beef (with a huge variation though). Look up Virtual Water or Water Foodprint on the net.
http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Hoekstra_and_Chapagain_2006.pdf
The main component is the feed for the animal. 1 kg of grain cost about 1000 l consumptive water use, mainly evaporation.
Of course there is not a global water problem for food production. We merely need to grow crops in rainy areas and not in deserts and then trade “virtual water” by import/export of food. Furthermore, we could consume more seaweed, which can be cultured in saltwater.
Denmark, a rainy country, exports about 10.000.000.000.000 l of virtual water as pigmeat each year. This corresponds to 1/3 of the Danish rain pr. yr. The net export is much lower as the pig farmers import much feed for their pigs.