Dieoff starting in Africa

[vtsnowedin]

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Africa/Africa.html

[Very interesting article about the grim fate of Africa going into the next three decades.

How do you think that compares to the fate or Europe and the UK?

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Africa/Africa.html

[Very interesting article about the grim fate of Africa going into the next three decades.

How do you think that compares to the fate or Europe and the UK?

Well, the obvious difference is the relative amount of personal/national income spent on food. In the UK, only the very poorest actually have to decide between eating and heating during a prolonged freeze. For most of the population, there is still a lot that could and will be cut out before starvation is a serious threat. Africans will be starving while the Europeans get used to having less and less money spare to spend on non-essentials. How this compares to the US is harder to guess, because it all rather depends on the future path of internal US politics, and how Americans react to the loss of their economic empire and the shattering of "the American Dream". The US still has a lot of natural resources available, but the politics and psychology is very scary. From my POV: lots of crazy people with guns and the most serious disconnect with reality of any nation on Earth apart from North Korea. I'm not placing any bets on what is going to happen to the United States, apart from it not being very pleasant.

ETA: There is an obvious question regarding how Europe will react to the loss of the dream of a politically-united Federal Europe, but I don't think this is quite as important politically and psychologically. This is because the European project is only partially completed, and getting this far was not easy. I think the majority of the population of the EU, or certainly the eurozone, already know it is doomed and won't be that sad to see it put out of its misery. Sooner rather than later, that population will elect anti-EU governments to oversee the breakup of the monetary union. Europe will go back to being individual nation states with their own currencies.

[vtsnowedin]

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Africa/Africa.html

[Very interesting article about the grim fate of Africa going into the next three decades.

How do you think that compares to the fate or Europe and the UK?

Well, the obvious difference is the relative amount of personal/national income spent on food. In the UK, only the very poorest actually have to decide between eating and heating during a prolonged freeze. For most of the population, there is still a lot that could and will be cut out before starvation is a serious threat. Africans will be starving while the Europeans get used to having less and less money spare to spend on non-essentials. How this compares to the US is harder to guess, because it all rather depends on the future path of internal US politics, and how Americans react to the loss of their economic empire and the shattering of "the American Dream". The US still has a lot of natural resources available, but the politics and psychology is very scary. From my POV: lots of crazy people with guns and the most serious disconnect with reality of any nation on Earth apart from North Korea. I'm not placing any bets on what is going to happen to the United States, apart from it not being very pleasant.

ETA: There is an obvious question regarding how Europe will react to the loss of the dream of a politically-united Federal Europe, but I don't think this is quite as important politically and psychologically. This is because the European project is only partially completed, and getting this far was not easy. I think the majority of the population of the EU, or certainly the eurozone, already know it is doomed and won't be that sad to see it put out of its misery. Sooner rather than later, that population will elect anti-EU governments to oversee the breakup of the monetary union. Europe will go back to being individual nation states with their own currencies.

That income you speak about is just paper money and for many of the UK's poorest it all comes in a government check. Let the government in the UK and across Europe go onto a cash only basis and things will go from bad to very much worse in a heart beat. Politics will amount to very little and it will come down to which countries can export food or energy and those that have to buy or beg for food. Ill take the USA's position on both the food and energy front over Europe's any day.

[kenneal - lagger]

Most US food production relies on oil for both production, distribution and local transport. The crashing of the US economy would result in a difficulty in importing fuel so the US government would have the problem of having to divert fuel to the agricultural sector in order to continue food growing. This would cause huge problems in the food distribution sector and also with private motorists, who depend on oil to get to the food shops.

[Lord Beria3]

Most US food production relies on oil for both production, distribution and local transport. The crashing of the US economy would result in a difficulty in importing fuel so the US government would have the problem of having to divert fuel to the agricultural sector in order to continue food growing. This would cause huge problems in the food distribution sector and also with private motorists, who depend on oil to get to the food shops.

Yes, but as other reports have investigated, only 10% of total oil consumption is dedicated to the food sector. Even if America halfed its energy usuage and/or its oil imports crashed by 50%, it could still feed its population and leave 40% left over for non-essentials.

If you want to read more, look up my net export and population thread.

[vtsnowedin]

Most US food production relies on oil for both production, distribution and local transport. The crashing of the US economy would result in a difficulty in importing fuel so the US government would have the problem of having to divert fuel to the agricultural sector in order to continue food growing. This would cause huge problems in the food distribution sector and also with private motorists, who depend on oil to get to the food shops.

Yes, but as other reports have investigated, only 10% of total oil consumption is dedicated to the food sector. Even if America halfed its energy usuage and/or its oil imports crashed by 50%, it could still feed its population and leave 40% left over for non-essentials.

If you want to read more, look up my net export and population thread.

Thanks LB3. I tried to answer Ken this AM but the post got lost on its way through a storm cloud to the satellite. I had to go to work so had not the time to retry. Your answer serves as well as mine.

[kenneal - lagger]

Most US food production relies on oil for both production, distribution and local transport. The crashing of the US economy would result in a difficulty in importing fuel so the US government would have the problem of having to divert fuel to the agricultural sector in order to continue food growing. This would cause huge problems in the food distribution sector and also with private motorists, who depend on oil to get to the food shops.

Yes, but as other reports have investigated, only 10% of total oil consumption is dedicated to the food sector. Even if America halfed its energy usuage and/or its oil imports crashed by 50%, it could still feed its population and leave 40% left over for non-essentials.

If you want to read more, look up my net export and population thread.

If the US halved its oil imports, the 10% currently used in agriculture would become 20% of the halved imports. Removing that amount of fuel from an already depleted open market would cause howls of anguish from motorists desperate for fuel to get to the mall to purchase their food. I suspect that the logic of the measure would be lost on most of the population. After all what's the good of producing the food if you can't drive to the mall to buy it? Also, does that 10% cover the fuel used to transport most vegetable crops from California to the East Coast?

[DominicJ]

Ken
The US is unlikely to find itself in a position where it lacks the fuel for transporting food to local collection points.
Simply because the US grain belts feed the oil exporters.

[UndercoverElephant]

Ken
The US is unlikely to find itself in a position where it lacks the fuel for transporting food to local collection points.
Simply because the US grain belts feed the oil exporters.

Sorry, but that logic doesn't work. The oil exporters can and will get their food from closer to home if they need to, and when the price of oil is raising the price of food imported from far away then they may well need to. There will be no shortage of more local food suppliers who want the oil just as badly as the Americans do.

At the moment, the physical isolation of the US from the Old World isn't very important, because fuel is still so cheap. This will not always be the case.

And all of this assumes that there still are any significant oil exporters in ten years time, which is looking increasingly unlikely.

[DominicJ]

UE
The US grain exports were massive in the late 1700s

I'm not sure what other local suppliers you think could step into the gap either.
Russia, maybe, but investing in Russia is risky at best.

[UndercoverElephant]

UE
The US grain exports were massive in the late 1700s

I'm not sure what other local suppliers you think could step into the gap either.
Russia, maybe, but investing in Russia is risky at best.

Russia, Ukraine and various parts of Eastern Europe have plenty of farmland, and falling population levels. The oil rich nations have also been buying up farmland in Africa for their own use. This land will eventually feed Arabs while Africans starve.

[Totally_Baffled]

UE
The US grain exports were massive in the late 1700s

I'm not sure what other local suppliers you think could step into the gap either.
Russia, maybe, but investing in Russia is risky at best.

Russia, Ukraine and various parts of Eastern Europe have plenty of farmland, and falling population levels. The oil rich nations have also been buying up farmland in Africa for their own use. This land will eventually feed Arabs while Africans starve.

This is true, some ex soviet states (including Russia) are forecast to lose up to a third of their populations by 2050!

[ziggy12345]

UE
The US grain exports were massive in the late 1700s

I'm not sure what other local suppliers you think could step into the gap either.
Russia, maybe, but investing in Russia is risky at best.

Russia, Ukraine and various parts of Eastern Europe have plenty of farmland, and falling population levels. The oil rich nations have also been buying up farmland in Africa for their own use. This land will eventually feed Arabs while Africans starve.

A bit like wheat grown in Ireland to feed british troops while the Irish starved

[jonny2mad]

lots of Irish migrated so will the africans

[JavaScriptDonkey]

A bit like wheat grown in Ireland to feed british troops while the Irish starved

Not sure it actually happened like that.

My understanding was that the Potato Blight traveled from East to West across Europe, finishing in Ireland after devastating places like Switzerland first. Anywhere that relied on the potato was in danger. Ireland got it last meaning that by that time the price of every other food commodity was already high.

The Corn Laws (which had been gouging the English workers for 40 years by then and had caused their own riots) were repealed quickly but that was of little use as the Irish labourers relied on their potato crops to generate a income. No crop = no money to buy bread.

Food was continually exported throughout the famine but that profit allowed the Irish that worked in those sectors to feed their own families. The famine was as much a product of subsistence farming (forced on the mainly Western Irish by political oppression) as it was a product of the Potato Blight.

The true evil was the wave of mass evictions that followed that themselves were the cause of much misery and the source of the great diaspora. You can find many parallels in the laws passed to 'deal' with the Irish poor in the sort of things demanded by Daily Mail readers to deal with Benefit People today.