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Re: First Trillion
In article <AEDAE730-DF1BEF@128.112.44.101>,
"Don Dale" <dale@princeton.edu> wrote:
> Wait a minute, that tune sounds familiar. In fact, it sounds like a cover
> of the classic "Famine is Inevitable," first written and performed by
> Thomas Malthus and the Dismal Scientists almost 300 years ago. Quite a
> catchy little ditty in its day, but it hasn't aged well.
Are you suggesting that famines don't exist? It's not clear what your
point is, since a quarter of a billion people currently live in famine
conditions, and 90 million people starved to death last year. That's
a third of the birth rate for the whole world!
The huge worldwide agricultural surpluses of the last 30 years were
wiped out by the collapse of Russian agriculture and a couple short
harvests. Averaged over a decade, world food production promises to
be adequate for some time yet, but people can't stop eating for a year
to let conditions correct themselves.
Economists can afford to take the long view. In the real world, when
an area enters famine conditions the first thing to suffer is agricultural
production. Farmers can't protect their crops long enough to get a full
harvest. The agriculture of famine areas will eventually recover after
enough people starve to death or migrate to other areas.
The areas of the world most at risk for famine are also those with the
highest birth rate. It's not beyond reason to anticipate a famine large
enough to meet or exceed the global birth rate sometime within the next
20 years. This will not stop the expansion of the earth's population,
but it might slow it significantly.
Right now we're adding a billion people every 11 years. We're right
at 6 billion now. I don't think we'll make it to 8 billion without
breaking something. Twenty years.
The risk for Europe and North America is small. Both regions have
stabilized their populations well below the carrying capacity of the
area. China is making desperate efforts to do the same. Portions of
South America are still in pretty good shape. The rest of the world is
running right off a cliff.
-- Larry
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