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Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy



J McGinnis (sync@inforamp.net) wrote:
: On 20 Nov 1996 13:56:44 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
: wrote:

: >I'm doubtful about James McGinnis's statement that the number of
: >people facing starvation has doubled since 1989.  Which people are
: >being discussed.

: >At the other end of the scale, 

: I assume that's the poor : rich scale?

: >the number with the opportunity to buy
: >Big Macs has probably doubled since 1989, since McDonalds is now in
: >100 countries.

: I'll say it again. If all the world produced and consumed food as
: North Americans do, we could only provide enough food for 2.5 Billion
: people. The world population is expected to pass 8 Billion within 30
: years. 

: In other words, the number of people eating Big Macs is a cause of the
: problem, not a sign of improvement.


What I really don't understand is how the "Large Population is Not
A Problem" crowd always harp on the ever increasing food production
and technology as evidence that we shouldn't worry.

There was a perfect example of this viewpoint in a recent Wall Street
Journal Op-ed piece. 

For the WSJ, it was quite exceptionally economically illiterate, except
of course that in this case it corresponds to their ideological biases.

Specifically, 
    
      Because food is so vital, people will pay whatever costs
      are necessary, in anything other than wartime or rigidly inflexible
      tyrrany, examining food availbility and production is absolutely
      the **worst** way to evaluate the desirablility or health of
      large populations or population growth. 

Sure, you can shoehorn a few billion people into Texas, but
WOULD THEY WANT TO??  Of course not, it wouldn't be that nice a place to live.

We must face the facts that all the best places for humans to live already
have humans living there.

The real question is "will the average standard of living be higher
with more people or not?"  not "will we be able to feed more people".  

Of course we will be able to feed more people, but so what?   What
other sacrifices do we have to make to support a large population?

Look at metropolitan Los Angeles.   Santa Monica is quite a nice place
to live.  The population is so high, however, that only the very
rich can afford houses there.   The more plebian have to live further
out in hot smoggy areas and spend a substantial amount of their time and
income on commuting.  

Suppose the population were one tenth it's current size.   Sure the
rich might live in the elite sections of Santa Monica, but it would
be much easier for average joe's to live fairly close by, and drive or
walk much less of a distance into work. 

We can transform information almost without limit, but we cannot
transform geography or climate or rainfall. 

: Jason McGinnis

--
Matthew B. Kennel/mbk@caffeine.engr.utk.edu/I do not speak for ORNL, DOE or UT
Oak Ridge National Laboratory/University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN USA/ 


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