PowerSwitch

Posted: **25 Oct 2012, 19:17**

http://foodmyths.org/myths/hunger-food-security/

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 00:37**

mobbsey wrote:http://foodmyths.org/myths/hunger-food-security/

I find it compelling : population boom is the result of extra energy input from fossil fuels. more energy = more life, less energy = less life. life is an engine that maximizes entropy. its unlikely we'd have gone to all the trouble of machines if we could have fed ourselves staying put in the rural middle ages lifestyle

I think these claims that organic etc could feed everyone are utopian fantasy. Perhaps it works in some isolated,,ideal cases, but i bet it wont scale.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 06:53**

ceti331 wrote:
mobbsey wrote:http://foodmyths.org/myths/hunger-food-security/
I find it compelling : population boom is the result of extra energy input from fossil fuels. more energy = more life, less energy = less life. life is an engine that maximizes entropy. its unlikely we'd have gone to all the trouble of machines if we could have fed ourselves staying put in the rural middle ages lifestyle

I think these claims that organic etc could feed everyone are utopian fantasy. Perhaps it works in some isolated,,ideal cases, but i bet it wont scale.

You're right, it won't scale. At least, not for 7 billion.

If it did, we would have had 7 billion thousands of years ago.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 08:14**

stevecook172001 wrote:
ceti331 wrote:
mobbsey wrote:http://foodmyths.org/myths/hunger-food-security/
I find it compelling : population boom is the result of extra energy input from fossil fuels. more energy = more life, less energy = less life. life is an engine that maximizes entropy. its unlikely we'd have gone to all the trouble of machines if we could have fed ourselves staying put in the rural middle ages lifestyle

I think these claims that organic etc could feed everyone are utopian fantasy. Perhaps it works in some isolated,,ideal cases, but i bet it wont scale.
You're right, it won't scale. At least, not for 7 billion.

If it did, we would have had 7 billion thousands of years ago.

Yes.
Population increases to the limit of the available food supply.
Primitive technologies such as ploughing, and the use of draught animals, and the raising of edible livestock on marginal land, allowed an increase in population to perhaps a billion or so.
More modern technologies, virtually all FF powered, have allowed a vast increase to about 7 billion. Once the cheap and plentiful FF are gone, population will decline, not perhaps to as low as one billion, but certainly to far below todays level.
I suspect that we are near peak population.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 08:26**

ceti331 wrote: I think these claims that organic etc could feed everyone are utopian fantasy. Perhaps it works in some isolated,,ideal cases, but i bet it wont scale.

I've often pointed out that my part of the country, Lincolnshire, much of the land is not used for human food production and could produce far more food in a world where labour is cheaper, energy is more expensive and organic and permaculture approaches are the norm.

I've just had a visit from someone who is setting up a farm in Uganda on land that at present is not particularly productive. The farm will be organic, produce coffee and and honey as cash crops and a great variety of food crops that will allow several people per acre to live sustainably for ever with zero fossil energy input and zero net carbon emissions.

I'm pretty sure it will work and could be reproduced a million-fold.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 10:46**

Population will not fall back to pre-oil numbers because we have learned so much since then. Our discoveries will not be un-learned.

Yesterday I researched anaerobic digesters, turning vegetable scraps and animal droppings into methane to power a gas hob. Everything needed to build such a device has been available for many thousands of years, but only ( relatively ) recently do we have the education to build such things.

The Rocket Stove is another example, incredibly simple and efficient, could have been in use for 10,000 years, but wasn't.

Permaculture could be the next leap, or maybe not, but certainly some of its' lessons will improve yields per acre where labour is available. Worldwide travel has given us plant varieties that were unknown here, the humble spud is the best example.

All in all, I don't see a huge die-off in the near future.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 10:54**

There's enough food in the world to feed seven billion.

There isn't enough will.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 10:56**

biffvernon wrote:
ceti331 wrote:will allow several people per acre to live sustainably for ever with zero fossil energy input and zero net carbon emissions.

I'm pretty sure it will work and could be reproduced a million-fold.
Well that's several million sorted then, a drop in the ocean really, we need hundreds of millions of efficient smallholdings worldwide.

I wish there was a committee somewhere developing a "1 Acre Plan", where the best brains put together a set of blueprints for numpties like me to follow instead of having to work it all out myself.

I know there are local conditions, but they're not that varied, a few blueprints would cover it and think of the logistical savings if everyone could buy the pig-ark kits pre-cut, the correct lengths of electric fence, the right amount and variety of seeds.

Smallholding in a box - just add land and labour.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 11:15**

I just donated money to the Organic Consumers Fund who want GMO-containing food in California to be labelled as such. I can't compete with Monsanto's millions though.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 11:45**

Catweazle wrote:I wish there was a committee somewhere developing a "1 Acre Plan", where the best brains put together a set of blueprints for numpties like me to follow instead of having to work it all out myself.

I know there are local conditions, but they're not that varied, a few blueprints would cover it and think of the logistical savings if everyone could buy the pig-ark kits pre-cut, the correct lengths of electric fence, the right amount and variety of seeds.

Smallholding in a box - just add land and labour.

I think there would need to be a range of components, hopefully open source designs that could be made with locally sourced materials where possible, rather than in big factories. Then a network of local advisers who can help pick the right components for a particular site.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 17:20**

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biointensive_agriculture

http://www.johnjeavons.info/

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 17:21**

emordnilap wrote:There's enough food in the world to feed seven billion.

There isn't enough will.

There's plenty of will, it's the propoganda that's the problem.

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 17:37**

Catweazle wrote:Population will not fall back to pre-oil numbers because we have learned so much since then. Our discoveries will not be un-learned.

Yesterday I researched anaerobic digesters, turning vegetable scraps and animal droppings into methane to power a gas hob. Everything needed to build such a device has been available for many thousands of years, but only ( relatively ) recently do we have the education to build such things.

The Rocket Stove is another example, incredibly simple and efficient, could have been in use for 10,000 years, but wasn't.

Permaculture could be the next leap, or maybe not, but certainly some of its' lessons will improve yields per acre where labour is available. Worldwide travel has given us plant varieties that were unknown here, the humble spud is the best example.

All in all, I don't see a huge die-off in the near future.

IMHO....permaculture is the only way forward, however...as far as population dropping back to 'pre-oil' numbers, that could very easily happen, as could our own annhilation.

I guess it's all about how we use the knowledge.

'For example, the bushmen of the Kalahari have a native bean called the morama bean. It is a perennial that grows underground and spreads out when it rains. They used to go out and collect it. But after they were pushed off their lands to make room for game and natural parks the morama bean was hard to find. I asked them, "Why don’t you plant them here?" They said, "Do you think we could?" So we planted the bean in their gardens. Up to that point, they never actually thought of planting something. It stunned them that they could actually do that.'

I assume you're already well-read, but I'll drop the link anyway...

http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 23:08**

Catweazle wrote:Population will not fall back to pre-oil numbers because we have learned so much since then. Our discoveries will not be un-learned.

we've learned how to unlock work done by plants millions of years ago

What we've learned also shows natures' machinery is way more advanced than anything we've created.
self-assembling solar powered nano-techonology..
[/quote]

Catweazle wrote: Yesterday I researched anaerobic digesters, turning vegetable scraps and animal droppings into methane to power a gas hob. Everything needed to build such a device has been available for many thousands of years, but only ( relatively ) recently do we have the education to build such things.

we didn't have the exact knowledge of today but people had many ways of getting value from biomass, and even if it wasn't understood in depth like we do today, a lot of random experimentation was done. (after all thats how nature creates amazing systems).
animal droppings -> methane, or animal droppings -> ploughed back into the ground as fertilizer..

methane-hob .. we use thermal energy to increase our ability to digest something, and live in inapropriate climates
for those problems, ants use a symbiosis with fungus, and other creatures have fur. I'm not sure our 'brain-derived' solutions are really that much better than the self-assembling nano-tech solutions used in the rest of nature.

Catweazle wrote: Permaculture could be the next leap, or maybe not, but certainly some of its' lessons will improve yields per acre where labour is available.

maybe our knowledge will double pre-fossil population ?
800milllion -> 1.6billion
or quadruple
800million -> 3.2billion

but there's the potential of our current environmental damage to factor in (which we don't), maybe that could reduce the capacity too.. -10% ? half?
equally likely there might be potential capacity but we're so specialized socially toward fossil use that the majority of us can't use it.

plus applying the knowledge requires the globally specialized complex society , I think it is possible knowledge can be lost. eg - Telecoms are more useful whilst we can regularly move physical goods across long distances, but if we lose that capacity, might the telecoms no longer justify their energy investment and we shrink back to local knowledge?

so this is why i have the 2billion number.. admitedly its a very vague ballpark, but a lot more optimistic than the georgia guidestones 500m

Posted: **26 Oct 2012, 23:11**

emordnilap wrote:There's enough food in the world to feed seven billion.
There isn't enough will.

yes there is , because today 7billion are fed

its any surpluss above 7billion that starves

emordnilap wrote:There's enough food in the world to feed seven billion.

* under fossil-fueled agri conditions, with fossil fueled global trade to exchange surplusses, and fossil fuels to free up land we'd otherwise need as forrests for making wood, etc

peaceful_life wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biointensive_agriculture

"Many of the techniques that comprise the biointensive method were present in the agriculture of the ancient Chinese, Greeks, Mayans, and of the Early Modern period in Europe."
.. which fed 100millions of people, not billions

so + a few tweaks but - environmental damage.. feeding 2billion seems like a realistic upper limit.

PowerSwitch

New 'Food Myths' video

New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video

Re: New 'Food Myths' video