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Re: The Limits To Growth
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Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
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From: jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
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Date: 14 Nov 1996 05:01:17 GMT
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Article: 15890 of alt.sustainable.agriculture
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In-reply-to: mturton@stsvr.showtower.com.tw's message of 13 Nov 1996 23:36:28 GMT
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Newsgroups: alt.agriculture.misc, alt.org.earth-first, alt.politics.economics, alt.politics.greens, alt.save.the.earth, alt.sustainable.agriculture, sci.agriculture, sci.econ, sci.energy, sci.environment, talk.environment
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Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
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References: <542t7d$iep@rainbow.rmii.com> <32665F05.112@ilhawaii.net> <JMC.96Nov10090026@Steam.stanford.edu> <565ehv$qm9@agate.berkeley.edu> <01bbcf5b$bd8e1700$89d0d6cc@masher> <567f46$2prt@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de> <56d2l3$k1q@agate.berkeley.edu> <56dm1s$cv@netnews.ntu.edu.tw>
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Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
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Xref: newz.oit.unc.edu alt.agriculture.misc:6356 alt.org.earth-first:6514 alt.politics.economics:92358 alt.politics.greens:23383 alt.save.the.earth:25482 alt.sustainable.agriculture:15890 sci.agriculture:15786 sci.econ:60100 sci.energy:57865 sci.environment:111369 talk.environment:76710
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.
Even yield/hectare is much less important than yield/man-hour.
American farms are typically less efficient than European in
yield/hectare and more efficient in yield/man-hour.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.
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