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Re: The Limits To Growth



In article <jcbud0r6tq.fsf@kbhr.ilo.dec.com> Alastair McKinstry <alastair@kbhr.ilo.dec.com> writes:
 > 
 > 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 ?

It includes only the people working in agriculture.  Americans spend
(if I recall correctly) 16 percent of our income on food, but this
includes restaurant meals.  In general, we spend much more on making
our eating convenient and pleasant than on the food itself.

When I go to a restaurant, I am appalled by the huge portions,
especially as I am too fat.  The reason they serve huge portions is
that the service is much more expensive than the food.
-- 
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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