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Re: The Limits To Growth



jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) writes:

> 
> Michael Turton includes:
> 
>      Define "efficiency" please?  Is using heavily subsidized oil
>      and water to increase yields "efficient?"  As Arnold Pacey
>      points out in _The Culture of Technology_, from the
>      yield/hectare standpoint capital-intensive farming is more
>      "efficient," but from the energy input/yield standpoint,
>      low-tech, labor intensive farming is more efficient, many
>      times more, in fact.
> 
> Making energy efficiency a general goal is foolish.  What counts is
> the labor efficiency that permits two percent of the American
> population to grow food for all of us and then some for export.

Does this labor efficiency include those working in energy creation
(oil extraction, fertilizer manufacture) or just those directly
involved in agriculture ?

> 
> -- 
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305

-- 
Alastair McKinstry <alastair@ilo.dec.com>
Technical Computing Group, Digital Software, Ballybrit, Galway, Ireland
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world
is either a madman or an economist - Kenneth Boulding, economist.



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