Complex Systems Theorists Predict We're About One Year From Global Food Riots 926
pigrabbitbear writes with conjecture on what triggers global unrest. Quoting the article: "In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest."
Civil unrest (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. So many "wins" for the predator class.
Manipulate global commodity markets for foodstuffs - WIN!
Chaos to justify re-ordering "democratic" societies - WIN!
And then? Reorganising municipalities into "Charter Cities" [go.com], run by enterprise - WIN!
Re:Civil unrest (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember: Pillage, then Burn!
Nonononono. Rape. Then pillage. THEN burn.
Re:Civil unrest (Score:5, Funny)
Rape. Then pillage. THEN burn.
I can't find that button. What's the keyboard shortcut?
Re:Civil unrest (Score:4, Funny)
I did that, thanks! Now my cities have a productivity bonus, happy populace, city walls, and a Cristo Redentor wonder! It also looks... whiter... somehow.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's hope it doesn't become an instruction manual like 1984.
1984 - since 1950's ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's hope it doesn't become an instruction manual like 1984.
Ever since the novel "1984" was published, back in 1949, the world has been actively "prepared" for the fruition
Do you know that the world population more than double, - almost triple - since 1949?
Back in the 1950's, global population of human being was around 2,556,000,000
Now, 7,000,000,000 and rising, by the second !!
With that many more mouths to feed, and the planet ain't getting any bigger, it sure is a recipe for disasters, big disasters
And with big disasters come big opportunities, for some
I won't be surprised at another global calamity 10 to 30 years in the future - and by then, blood may flow like rivers and corpse may pile up like hills and mountains - it would apocalypse, in every sense of the term
And I hope I will be dead before that happen
Re:1984 - since 1950's ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Global population is not growing nearly as fast as it was then, and its predicted to lower even further.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_grow&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world+population+growth [google.com]
People have less children, especially in developed countries. They often average less than two children per couple, thus reducing population, no increasing it.
Re:1984 - since 1950's ! (Score:5, Interesting)
You forgot to mention that the growth rate is slowing, particularly as two certain countries (admittedly, slowly) uplift themselves, with the most common studies expecting a plateau to begin appearing around 10-11 billion.
No it doesnt help that 1/3 of american corn is diverted to ethanol (but thats another issue).
But the problem (as has been stated millions of times) isnt food production, its food distribution.
I love this page: http://flowingdata.com/2011/07/27/if-the-world-lived-in-a-single-city/ [flowingdata.com]
Houston is pretty spread out, ~3700 people per sq mile. that's ~5.7 people per acre.
Living in cities amplifies the food thing cause people aren't growing their own, and so are dependent on a few people to supply them. Thats called civilization and specialization and a buncha other things. But even so, it still comes down to distrubution. Ever work in a grocery? You see how much stuff we throw away due to rules about experiation and what not in a typical grocery store?
Again. Not a quantity problem, its a distribution problem.
So the doom and gloom? Not warranted.
Like the saying goes.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No man is more than three square meals away from revolution.
Re:Like the saying goes.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like the saying goes.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Like the saying goes.. (Score:5, Funny)
Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Malthus? Is that you?
Re:Catastrophe (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
No, for the last time, it's Matheus with an 'e'!
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Funny)
And with an 'L'!
(Don't you hate that?)
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually bad shit will happen. Eventually, someone might actually get a model that accurately predicts it. Dismissing this new research because someone years ago made the same predictions with simpler, inaccurate models is not a logically sound basis to dismiss new research. If there is something amiss with the new research, dismiss it on those grounds. That is skepticism. Dismissing based on the fact Malthus was wrong* is not sound.
*Malthus was only wrong about missing the Green Revolution. However, the amount of food extractable from any given acre cannot continue to increase forever. There is still an upper limit ahead.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:4, Insightful)
Eventually bad shit will happen. Eventually, someone might actually get a model that accurately predicts it.
Except once knowledge of the accurate model is wide spread it will change the outcome events, in sort of a societal uncertainty principle.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Except once knowledge of the accurate model is wide spread it will change the outcome events, in sort of a societal uncertainty principle.
Only if you can do anything about it.
What can you do about global warming and peak oil, at least in the short term?
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF, Insightful?
Is it a rhetorical question, and are you really implying that we cannot do anything about global warming & peak oil in the short term?
On the top of my head, here are some stuff you could start *today* :
* turn your air conditioning off, or choose an higher set temperature
* eat less meat
* buy local and seasonal food
* take the bus, tram or bike to commute. If you have to take the car, bring a colleague with you
* don't buy any gadget that you would stop using after a few days/weeks
* don't plan to take the plane for your next holidays
* generally try to use less energy that your neighbor
* spread the word
There you go!
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFL. How much energy is that going to save, and how will it compare to the rise in energy consumption in Chindia and other developing countries? :)
FWIW, I gave up the car some time ago, haven't flown in years and am an almost-vegetarian but I don't think that's going to change anything. I have moved from being a climate change and peak oil activist to the doomer camp. I like to be out in front
Re:Catastrophe (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything you suggested will just reduce prices, inducing someone else to use those resources. You either need to force everyone on board (everyone in the world) or your solution is not effective. Your solutions make you feel good, and that might be enough reason to do them. Your intentions are noble, and that is to be commended. But if one locust in a hoard doesn't eat the grain in the field, the field will still get devoured.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually bad shit will happen. Eventually, someone might actually get a model that accurately predicts it. Dismissing this new research because someone years ago made the same predictions with simpler, inaccurate models is not a logically sound basis to dismiss new research. If there is something amiss with the new research, dismiss it on those grounds. That is skepticism. Dismissing based on the fact Malthus was wrong* is not sound.
*Malthus was only wrong about missing the Green Revolution. However, the amount of food extractable from any given acre cannot continue to increase forever. There is still an upper limit ahead.
Per acre, sure. However, there may not be a limit on the number of possible acres. It's quite possible to literally create new farmland using hydroponics and similar systems (layered greenhouses and the like). The upper limit is in energy (we can use sunlight for quite some time yet with good optics) and raw materials. Interestingly, one of those raw materials is CO2, which serves as a nice potential solution for one of our other problems as well.
Possible now? Maybe not, but if there is one thing everyone should learn from history, it's that humans tend to make the currently impossible possible given the right incentive. And starvation is one hell of a motivator.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Interesting)
It is possible now, in fact the world creates enough Calories to feed the current population--starvation is a distribution problem. Thanks to Norman Borlaug, we now have corn that creates Vitamin A and 100% of your essential amino acids, and that was years ago. A worldwide team of crop experts has been crossing rice strains to make a type that is highly suited for a hydroponics environment as a way of dealing with the issue of available cropland in Asia. Overall, every staple grain has seen a trend in the last two decades of higher-yield and less maintenance.
You can focus on hype, people waving predictions in your face about potential worst-case scenarios, but those who study "The World Food Problem" know there's equal parts messages of caution and hope.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Catastrophe (Score:5, Insightful)
And starvation is one hell of a motivator.
Unfortunately starvation is not a motivator for the people who most influence the global economic system. Profit is the motivator.
Re:Catastrophe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Catastrophe (Score:4, Insightful)
then there's something else going on.
Yes, Russia, the US, and Australia, (ie: the world's major grain belts) have all suffered from severe drought over the last decade, Australia and the US also suffered from severe floods. These "once in a 100yr" events are awfully common over the last 10yrs or so, which is about how long insurance companies have been working the effects of AGW into your bill. Corn for fuel is a very minor influenece in the price fluctiations seen for grain over the last decade, the price fluctuations follow the global harvests, unusually bad weather has caused a string of poor global harvests over the last 10yrs or so, particularly for wheat and corn.
Re: (Score:3)
I was thinking they sounded more like the Club Of Rome myself.
Still Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
"Experts" have been incorrectly predicting that vast swaths of humanity would startve to death at least since Malthus. How can claims like this still be taken seriously?
Perhaps I could buy the claim that "food riots will happen, despit no lack of food"; after all, we do as a species love to protest. We produce enough food to feed everyone as the populaiton grows while less land is needed for farming every decade. The WHO warns about similar numbers of people facing obesity problems as they do starvation problems. Yes, there will always be governments that withhold food as a weapon against their own citizens, but beyond that any claim of a food shortage just seems silly.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Not a lack of food. A lack of cheap food. When you spend a large percentage of your income on food, it matters more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
My current net worth is about $600,000 and I have this [yearfoodsupply.com] in my basement. I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry.
Yes you do. Now we know we can raid your basement for food.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
My current net worth is about $600,000 and I have this [yearfoodsupply.com] in my basement. I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry.
Yes you do. Now we know we can raid your basement for food.
I'm not sure why this was modded as funny because it's true.
The problem with being more prepared than your neighbors for a disaster is that when they get hungry and notice that you and your family are not, then they'll be busting down your door to take your food. No matter how well armed you are, if you have something worth stealing, there will always be someone better armed than you and enough desperate people with nothing left to lose to overwhelm your defenses.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution to these problems is to pit them against one another.
Simply cultivate a quantity of desperate people with nothing to lose who are willing to shoot pesky trespassers in exchange for a small cut of your food. Getting the implementation just right can be tricky, but this(along with appeals to the authority of the invisible friends of the powers that be) has been a fundamental part of human civilization for pretty much all of human history...
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
What's your alternative "solution".
Society.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
It's time for people to start learning about permaculture. The "green revolution" is nearing its end, as the petroleum on which it depends reaches peak production. The way forward is to grow as much of your own food as possible, buy your food as locally and seasonally as possible, and promote the adoption of sustainable farming practices, either via the political process or by directly supporting local farmers who use them.
Permaculture can be practiced through various methods in almost any type of climate, and it's scalable from a backyard plot to a thousand-acre spread. It uses no chemical inputs, requires far less water, and actually builds up more topsoil instead of eroding it out to the ocean.
A few examples to check out:
1. Managed grazing. Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm is a prime example of this method which produces insane amounts of beef, pork, and poultry on just 100 acres of grassland. (The average farm in their county gets 80 cow-days per acre; Polyface gets 400!)
2. Aquaponics. Will Allen's "Growing Power" co-op in Milwaukee is a great example of aquaponics, which is a cross between aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics. Basically, fish produce waste which feeds the plants, and plants clean the water to keep the fish healthy.
3. Pasture-cropping (aka "no-kill" farming). Australian Colin Seis is credited with inventing (or rediscovering) this technique of planting row crops on pasture land without plowing-under the grass. Instead, the grass is grazed or mowed prior to planting, which gives the crop plants a head start before the grass comes back.
There's a ton of info about all this stuff on the web, especially on YouTube. Check it out.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Two years of freeze dried foods and Meals Ready to Eat and you will be rioting even with a full stomach.
Slight change to the wording (Score:5, Funny)
Two years of freeze dried foods and Meals Ready to Eat and your colon will be rioting even with a full stomach.
Just stay away from open flame and you should be all right.
:-P
Maybe 5 years? (Score:4, Informative)
what you bought actually only has a 2 year shelf life, I don't care what their marketing department tells you.
The supplier's website says that with mild, dry storage conditions, the food is good for up to 25 years. My guess is their estimate is closer to the truth than yours.
How long has that supplier been in business? How long has the manufacturer of the goods they carry been in business? I'd be a little concerned about some company just jumping on the Y2K, Mayan 2012, etc bandwagon and not planning on being around for very long (in the fly-by-night business sense, not the apocalypse sense). I'd want to know a little more about who is making that 25 year claim.
Plus a supplier's claim is more suspicious than a manufacturer's claim. I saw some sort of food hoarder on TV with a similar cache. I recognize one of the brand names, "Mountain House" a quite respectable company making food for backpackers and such. The hoarder claimed something around 25 years too. Strange, the "Mountain House" freeze dried dehydrated vacuum sealed food packets I recently purchased for a backpacking trip had a use by 2017 date, a 5 year shelf life.
Re:Maybe 5 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why income tax is a good thing.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarians have about as much interest in history as they do in economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, or pretty much any other body of knowledge. Their's is an imaginary utopia where temples are raised to the Unseen Hand Of The Unregulated Free Market, and the rich are free to enjoy their wealth unfettered by any necessity beyond purely voluntary noblesse oblige and the poor have won the freedom to starve without the horrible fear of the evils of state intervention to prevent their downward spiral, and the working classes are free to pick the master that they shall be wage slaves to, or if they choose, to join the poor and fight for the kindly alms of the rich.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'm sure brains can be useful in gaining wealth, I don't think they are necessary. Inherited wealth, for instance, doesn't require a brain at all, and a thousand Einstein's could live and die never having achieved their potential because the resources were unavailable to sufficiently educate them.
I'm sure all those little lordlings hanging around the court of Louis XVI thought themselves quite clever for living a life of privilege while the peasants, scullery maids and all the other lesser classes lived in or near poverty. That is until Madame Guillotine rid them of those misconceptions... and everything else.
I think a wise man does not brag that he is rich, and a fool does, and if it ever came to food shortages, a fool will lose his head significantly faster than a wise man.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
And how exactly do you propose to create this rising tide? By cutting taxes to the wealthy, and somehow, out of a sense of honor and obligation, they will gladly replace the lost government funds that go into education, work programs, etc.? And how would this help anyone on welfare when the causes of a recession are external such as, I dunno, the meltdown of a major currency over which the United States has absolutely no control whatsoever?
You don't have a model. You have an ideological religion, and one that would prove quickly intolerable to the majority of society. Governments since Rome, and probably long before, figured out that if you don't keep the masses fed, at the very least you create massive social, and ultimately political instability. Hence the "bread" in "bread and circuses". Yes, it cost the Roman treasury plenty of coin, much of that gained from taxes, but the alternative was riots and social disorder, which were much more costly.
You don't prefer simplicity, you prefer magical Libertarian invocations. Back in the real world, real people, often through no fault of their own, face crises of an existential nature; whether it is health woes, long-term unemployment or underemployment, natural and man-made disasters. I would like you to go to them and prattle at them about how cutting them off at the knees will make the walk tall.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
A government is an entity which has a local monopoly on the use of force. The "competitive market" for governments is called warfare. In reducing government, you are both eliminating economies of scale, and creating a power vacuum: If you do not grant a government the right to use force against business entities, you are de facto granting those business entities that right. If you want to know what this looks like, there is a plenitude of historical examples: any time a first-world business interest encounters a third-world resource the pattern repeats. The British East India Company (India), the Dole Fruit Company (Hawai'i), the United Fruit Company (Central America) all enjoyed that libertarian ideal of being more powerful than local governments.
It has been a recognized principle that governments derive their right to use force from the consent of the governed. This is not a business transaction, nor should it be. The market is not a solution for everything -- it fails spectacularly in the case of natural monopolies. It should be perfectly obvious that government is a natural monopoly. If you want to open that market to competition, then you're frankly insane, but I will promise you that I will make every effort to out-compete you.
Individual rights are not worthless, nor is it wrong to champion them. Governments exist in balance with liberty; they should be resisted at every step, but to dispute their necessity is to eradicate the basis of democracy. Ultimately libertarianism dictates that man is only answerable to himself, and for himself. It would certainly be a better world if men were islands of virtuous selfdom. However, the strongest basis for virtue is that which perpetuates the species; unless you're willing to tell that to go hang, you must acknowledge that at some level the rights of society trump the rights of the individual. From there we differ only in degrees as to what other rights have preeminence.
If you have determined that your rights outweigh the rest of society or the species, one hopes that you will exempt yourself from the demands of society in whichever way is least detrimental to others -- I may recommend suicide -- and do be so good as to not reproduce while you're at it.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it has in the USA for the last 30 years you mean ? Where ever decreasing taxes have resulted in worker's wages going nowhere while productivity (and corporate profits) has skyrocketed ?
I like theories that agree with reality. Yours doesn't.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think Standard Oil got monstrous because of any sort of government interference. Government interference is what brought it down to size. Simply put, you cannot demonstrate anywhere at any time where a market has behaved in the way you claim, and the historical evidence suggests that unregulated markets tend towards very large conglomerates, or towards large competitors who will create what amounts to a treaty to divvy the market up (what we like to call collusion). That's why the Sherman Act and various other related acts through the industrialized world were created to begin with, because left to their own devices, large interests became ever larger.
If you can show me any example of a market producing the phenomenon you claim above, I would gladly consider it.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure that Manifest Destiny can be pointed north, as well as west...
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I knew, those "experts" were pretty much on target -- vast swathes of humanity have been starving to death since there were vast swathes of humanity.
Which makes such a prediction pretty useless. What those experts are predicting is a massive uptick in starvation rates. And yes, they have been consistently wrong. In modern times, there has never been a global, sustained, starvation die-off in the vein of a Malthusian Catastrophe.
Malthus totally got it right except for two developments he couldn't foresee.
In other words, he got it wrong.
The second factor (effective birth control) is the only reason you can remain ignorant enough to call Malthus wrong.
It's more than just birth control; it's a whole slew of factors that contribute to demographic transition [wikipedia.org]. And yes, it's the primary reason Malthus was wrong. One of his fundamental assumptions was:
"That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase"
Demographic transition has demonstrated that this is false. Human population growth is not limited solely by the availability of subsistence; it self-limits given the presence of other factors that tend to occur as prosperity increases.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
"Experts" have been incorrectly predicting that vast swaths of humanity would startve to death at least since Malthus. How can claims like this still be taken seriously?
Because they're not claiming sensationalistic Malthusian version of "we're doomed, there are too many people" and instead merely pointing out that people revolt when they don't make enough to feed their family.
The WHO warns about similar numbers of people facing obesity problems as they do starvation problems.
That's an entirely different topic. Obesity is above all related to sugar consumption -- or more specifically, fructose consumption -- if recent developments in nutrition are anything to go by. If we distribute snack bars, sweet water and fruit juice in Japan, China or Africa, we'll start seeing rampant obesity there too. Make that since we do, actually.
Yes, there will always be governments that withhold food as a weapon against their own citizens, but beyond that any claim of a food shortage just seems silly.
You've the wrong culprit there.
Even accounting for the occasional drought such as this year in the US, we indeed currently produce more that enough food to feed everyone on the planet and more. The primary withholders of food, however, are the major food exporters. Chief among them, the USA and the EU, so as to keep food prices high enough to sustain farmers -- which makes sense, when you scratch the surface, since the last thing you want in case of total war is to depend on food imports.
At any rate, and contrary to what you're suggesting, no government in its right mind willfully withholds food from its population. Food shortage is the surest path to revolts and uprising. Because when you've nothing to lose, you basically lose it.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You are talking about removing food, as opposed to continued denial of food. African warlords know that if the people have enough energy to stand, they will oppose the warlord, so he makes sure that the people starve. International aid is seized and resold on the black market. It gets the warlord income and helps keep control.
What do you do when you have nothing to lose, but so little caloric intake that you can't even lift your own head?
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, every major famine in the 20th Century was caused NOT by major crop failures, but by deliberate political policy or the effects of war.
Famous examples of this include the forced collectivization of farms in the Ukraine between 1928 and 1933, the time of the warlords in China during the 1920's and 1930's when fighting disrupted food supply, the effects of the the invasion of China by Japan (which also disrupted food supply), the "Great Leap Forward" in China that seriously affected food production, and the political policies of dictators in Africa during the second half of the 20th Century.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a planet with a comfortable capacity of 5 billion
[citation needed]
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The "comfortable capacity" of the planet is redefined every generation by alarmists to a bit less that whatever the population happens to be. Funny how that works.
Spending 80% on food is still a step up from subsistance farming. It's a step in the right direction (better than 100%) for a great many people. More steps will come.
It never fails to amaze me how many /. posters seem not to understand that technology makes us more efficient with the same resources. "Technology" doesn't mean the latest Apple product - it's every step forward in allowing more people to live "comfortably" on the same resources. Thinking the world has some fixed population limit that we've passed is thinkingthat technologicl advancement has stopped. Not likely.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong.
Apple INVENTED technology.
Then they patented it.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
"Alarmist" is an "alarmist". Whether or not it is a neo Malthusian predicting ruin of civilization via environmental cataclysm or a neo conservative predicting national ruin because of progressive/left wing policymaking.
An "alarmist" is anyone who irrationally clings to a conviction of ruin and fails to acknowledge the presense evidence that contradicts their position.
Nice try, trying to characterize your ideological opponents as rabble rousers.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear that argued by the religious right anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up
Yay, political/religious generalizations straight off the bat. Clearly, this post is going to be quality.
We have a planet with a comfortable capacity of 5 billion
Source? Or did you just pull a convenient number out of your backside? WHO estimates of human population levelling (~10 billion) place it somewhere below the median range of the estimated carrying capacity [wikipedia.org] of the earth.
I put the people who downplay the potential for mass starvation in the same category as people who deny climate change. They're both whistling past the graveyard so they don't have to make any sacrifices in terms of changing their lifestyle.
Probably because there's no need to change their lifestyle. There is not a finite amount of wealth; the fact that western nations are wealthy does not necessitate that undeveloped nations be kept so. As an example, look at Malawi [wikipedia.org]; within five years, with a fairly simple improvement in the form of a fertiliser subsidy, Malawi went from famine to being a food exporter. The same thing happened in India with the Green Revolution. Now imagine if they applied more modern techniques, like widespread irrigation, or high-yield strains of grain.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of the "green revolution" occurred because of extra energy input in the form of oil. Cheap oil allowed for the expansion of nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and mechanical harvesting. While the last two don't use an enormous amount of oil, the first does [theoildrum.com]. As fossil fuels become more expensive, so does nitrogen based fertilizer.
So there is likely a limit to the ability of said revolution to feed the planet. And I'm ignoring other potential limiters such as water, salinization of croplands and many others.
Re:Still Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
My great grandmother begs to differ enough that I had to give her THREE Swedish fish to calm her down. Downplaying the poverty and struggle of that era is a gross troll. People ate days old "bread" soaked in maple syrup, scooping off the mold. They rationed toilet paper because they COULDN'T AFFORD an extra roll, or they would starve. Pump your brakes, turn around, and go back the way you came.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Still Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
My grandparents and my oldest aunts (all in their late 70s now) picked blue berries by the ton for cash during the Depression, and when no work could be found, it was a garden, trade and my grandfather's rifle that kept the family going. My grandfather, his brother and his male in-laws all had trap lines to earn cash. This was in eastern British Columbia. They actually felt themselves quite lucky at that, and heard tough stories from their own kin in the Dakotas (my grandfather's parents actually rode a wagon train from the Dakotas into Alberta, and then his father moved the family across the Rockies a few years later).
While I remember my grandparents telling some fond stories of the times, mainly because the only way folks survived was to stick together, but they also said times were very tough, and families in the area were quite often only a meal or two from starvation, and any kind of disaster; a house fire or even a barn fire, was enough to see families go under. Children given to relatives while parents went looking for what work they could find.
Maybe not as many people starved in North America as some places, but a lot of people came damned close to it, far closer I think than most of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren realize.
Extrapolation (Score:5, Insightful)
In a 2011 paper ... explained why ... in 2008 and 2011
It's easy to make a model that correctly accounts for the past. Before I read the article, I was hoping that it was a model they created earlier, and just released last year. It wasn't. From the article:
We extrapolate these trends and identify a crossing point ... in 2012-2013
No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
People seem to forget models don't prove SHIT. Models model. So they are only as useful as their predictive ability. However you can't know that until you've released a model, and see what happens. If your model repeatedly makes correct predictions (and fails to make incorrect ones) then you can say it is a good model.
It doesn't mean shit if everything is historical. Yes, yes, you tweaked it until it modeled history accurately. Of course, that's a good first step. However that could just mean you made a model that generates a line in the right shape, rather than actually models anything useful. You have to wait and see how it does at predicting reality before you go and claim it is useful.
This also seems like a good case of "correlation isn't causation." So there's a correlation. Great, that means fuck-all. Another explanation for a bunch of riots would be things like the Arab Spring concept in that people see their neighbors rise up against their oppressors and say "Hey, we should do that too!"
Re:Extrapolation (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that these guys released their model before it had a chance to predict anything doesn't inspire confidence.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This will flop miserably, and nobody will hear of it again.
I recall the year after Katrina (and 3 other hurricanes that year) where "experts" predicted that year would also have many severe hurricanes. It was a mild year.
These "experts" have not heard of things like regression to the mean. The unusual result is not the standard, even in the presence of a slowly shifting standard.
I hope nobody remembers those clowns, either.
Has anyone ever noticed... (Score:5, Interesting)
That the contemporary "Zombie" as portrayed in movies, at the receiving end of a chainsaw or shotgun, looks and acts very much like a hungry person would?
Sometimes I wonder if that's just a co-incidence or by design... After all, there's not much difference between a starving person calling out "Brains" and "Grains" is there?
And when I do wonder that, I really, really hope it's by co-incidence.
GrpA
Article vs. paper (Score:5, Interesting)
While there have been several suggested origins of the food price increases, we find the dominant ones to be investor speculation and ethanol production.
I'm more inclined to believe the latter, because there was never a shortage of grain - just high prices. The US wasted millions of tons of grain making ethanol in a misguided attempt to not burn fossil fuel.
Re:Article vs. paper (Score:4, Insightful)
It's misguided because the farmland used to produce that grain could have produced food for human consumption, correct?
Does your argument apply to any scarce resource diverted from food production, including the petroleum that could have been used to power tractors and other farm equipment but we instead put into our automobiles?
What about farmland used directly or indirectly for meat production, a very inefficient way to produce food for humans?
Re:We waste grain (Score:5, Insightful)
And by the "Bush administration" you mean "the 16th century markets from which modern commodity market derive". There has never been a commodity market where buying and selling without taking possession wasn't the norm.
You're expressing a strong opinion about a highly technical subject that you know nothing about. It will only be karma when your boss does the same.
December 21, 2012 (Score:3)
So Start Global Gardening Riots (Score:5, Interesting)
The next time you're driving to work, take a glance to your left.
That 30' wide median strip? You know, the one they pay some public works teams to spend an entire week mowing several times a season? Yeah. Fully exposed to sunlight, easy access, on a major transportation route.
Now, granted, you're not going to want to grow food veggies in the median of a major interstate? Too much toxins from the exhaust and worse. But now that we've got the idea in your heads, take a look at the medians in your local town. Definitely not as much traffic, but sometimes just as wide, covered in very thirsty, very costly grass and/or other landscape plants, and 100% under-utilized.
So. When it looks like the global food riots are going to start, show up at your local council/zoning board and say, "Here's what's going on, here's what we're going to do about it. We will be growing food. We will take care of all maintenance and upkeep, and save the town (insert 5-6 figure amount) of dollars per year. If you interfere, we will sue you into oblivion. If you try to arrest us, we'll keep coming in until we're all incarcerated. Then YOU will have to pay for feeding us."
Re: (Score:3)
If you try to arrest us, we'll keep coming in until we're all incarcerated. Then YOU will have to pay for feeding us."
"Arrest" you? "Incarcerate" you? "Feed" you?
Your naivete is charming.
Perhaps you missed all the recent news items about all those government agencies that are stocking-up on huge quantities of ammunition? They know what's coming. Hell, they're helping it along.
No, they'll just shoot all of you and then bury you and your friends in an unmarked mass grave.
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
"Plan on starving if you depend on your own first attempt at gardening" Only if you really suck at it and half ass the attempt. My first attempt was preceded by reading about it all last winter, and early spring preparations. in this dismal growing season my personal patio garden was a cornucopia harvest all summer long. my special high tech planters cost $3.00 each from 5 gallon pickle pails I bought from the local restaurants. it's basically a hydroponics/ traditional growing technique that is brain d
Something I've been watching... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think they're wrong. I own about 500 acres of farmland that I rent out and this is something I've been watching the past couple years and something that a lot of the ag people have been warning about is the fact even the United States as of right now has less than a 90 day carry over (seems like I read something the other day that the supply had now dropped to something like 60 days). The carry over was 18 months in the 1950's. Frankly I find that a little scary.
That means that if there is a major disruption somewhere in the supply chain(oil supplies disrupted), another summer or two like this past one, or some major event like a large volcanic eruption on the scale of Krakatoa with global weather impact and the United States is 3 months away from having no food. This isn't the price becomes too high for people to afford, this is literally THERE IS NO FOOD. The physical supply doesn't exist. And that's kind of scary.
Let's just take this past summer. The United States produces roughly 40% of the world's corn. We'll be lucky to produce half that due to the weather this summer. That means globally about 20% of the global supply of corn this year is gone, it doesn't exist this year. Furthermore drought in Russia, Europe, and Australia means they aren't having bumper crops to offset that loss.
Short term that means people will likely turn to rice to replace corn as their staple. Rice prices aren't much changed from a year ago. (We raise Rice and Soybeans so that's what I primarily pay attention to). Soybean prices on the other hand are the highest I've seen it in my lifetime. And I remember early in the summer the commodity traders were assuming a near perfect yield this year in the prices of corn and soybeans, et. al. and that was *before* the drought. (I know, why those idiots were assuming that in the first place is another discussion)
What has surprised me is how little this gets reported in the main stream press. The only reason I know anything about it is the fact I own farms and read some of the ag publications so I have some idea of what is going on in that world.
Re:Something I've been watching... (Score:5, Funny)
In general, I agree with you. Mostly because 98% of americans cant grow their own food. But three is a small group of us that had a bumper crop this year. I have a 400 sq foot patio that I grew more produce than my family could eat. we had so many tomatoes I wasted 5 bushels on making KETCHUP. I have enough canned food from my small patio garden to last my family of 3 until feburary. If I would have tripled by garden by planting the neighbors yard, I would have not only fed my family until next summer but would have had food left over to feed the neighbors for a short while. Add in a rabbit pen and a chicken coop and I have the protien side complete, problem is the city wont allow it.
But due to the lack of education in the 1st world countries, most people cant figure this stuff out. They will be the first to starve. The rest of us that know what we are doing simply need to eat a lot less, as fat neighbors is a dead giveaway.
Re:Something I've been watching... (Score:5, Interesting)
So...... (Score:5, Funny)
I need to start training my kids at killing other kids in archery so that we can win the games this year?
couple thoughts (Score:3)
2. It's not necessarily a given that a warming planet will lead to food shortages. Some guys [guardian.co.uk] in the U.K. seem to think we could see yields (for some crops) increase by 50% by 2050. They could very well be wrong. Or they could be right.
Some numbers to consider and research (Score:4, Interesting)
Current industrial farming practices use 10 calories of energy (mostly from petrochemicals) to produce 1 calorie of food.
Contemporary farming techniques are heavily dependent on petrochemicals to produce fertilizer.
Contemporary farming techniques deplete topsoil faster than it will naturally replenish.
That said, there're a lot of dandelions and wild garlic in most yards (and more acreage in lawns in the U.S. than any single crop).
Something to think about (Score:5, Insightful)
The derivatives market is worth $800,000,000,000,000.00.
That's eight hundred trillion with a "T". It doesn't represent equity in any company, or commodity. It's not for business expansion or for building new factories or for putting new seed in the ground.
It's $800 trillion in real money that's used on a big monopoly board by extremely wealthy individuals and corporations. Remember, this is not the stock market, it is not shares in companies or bars of gold or bushels of corn. It's part of a big game of Texas Hold 'Em where if you lose, you send the bill to the taxpayers of some country or other.
It also happens to represent more than TEN TIMES the gross domestic products of all countries in the world. The derivatives market is worth several times that of the entire world. Possibly disruptive, no?
More than 3 BILLION people (50% of the world population, give or take) exist on less than $2/day.
There are about 1100 billionaires in the world and about 10 million millionaires (0.15%). About 25% of the world population is unemployed.
There is a whole lot of research that shows replicable, reliable correlation between growing wealth and income disparity and growth in every single negative metric of human society, from disease, to violence, to mental illness and back again. Not one bit of research that shows a positive effect of growing disparity of income and wealth.
In arguably the most prosperous of nations, the US, 40% of the population has a net worth of zero. The average person over 55 will retire with enough wealth to live for about 2.5 years. And much of the rest of the world only dreams about this kind of prosperity.
"Food riots?" Yah think? But just remember, it's not because there's not enough wealth to go around. You come up with a solution, because I'm going back down to the bunker.
Wrong problem (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the amount of food that's the problem (there's more than enough food for twice the wold population already), but the distribution.
Basically the population is decreasing (save for immigration) in the areas with surplus food production and increasing in areas that's already a long way past a sustainable food production.
So I doubt we'll see true food riots. We might see food mass migrations and we might see riots using food as an excuse, but not the hungry masses rising up.
I have no doubt that food will be an excuse for some riots. Usually riots seems to originate with groups of habitual criminals offended that the police are doing their job, and using either stupidities committed by the police or unsubstantiated rumors to cause a widespread reaction and turn it into a full riot and thus a free for all crime spree, complete with looting, arson and massive vandalism.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because just what the world needs is a ton of old people supported by only a few young people?
Re: (Score:3)
There's a movement in the industrialized world. Fewer young people are choosing to have children period. I'm not sure if this trend would ever offset those who choose to have 5, 10 or even 12 offspring in their life.
A Vietnamese friend once explained that in Vietnam, people have large families as infant mortality was quite high; to the point that children would be referred to by their birth order for several years until it was certain they would survive. So the oldest would be "First One" then so on and so
Re:Overpopulation (Score:5, Funny)
You tend to be inclined to produce more offspring when there's a real concern they might get EATEN BY GODDAMN PANTHERS on the way to school.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a cycle. Overpopulation requires more arable land for agriculture. When there isn't any, it's created, such as the San Joaquin Valley. This valley was basically desert. This was done by damming a few rivers and irrigating the land. That being said you can only convert so many deserts for agriculture, you start to run out of water, even if you still receive your normal annual rain fall. That would be a drought caused by over population. Same thing is is happening in Phoenix. The water table continues to
Re:Overpopulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, the San Joaquin Valley faces continuing pressure due to salinization. Every drop of water that irrigates the SJ desert contains a bit of salt, and when those drops evaporate, that salt is left behind, slowly increasing the toxicity of the soil. Worse, as the richness of the soil degrades due to the farming, its ability to handle saline conditions further declines.
This valley will work for now, but it's really only a short-term solution unless we work out. The only way we could go longer term would be to introduce the permaculture concepts put forward by the likes of Geoff Lawton [vimeo.com] which emphasizes long term sustainability and enhancing biodiversity alongside your crops.
BTW, this technology is gaining traction in India where the already-poor soil was boosted by fertilizers only for a short time. Now, the cost of the fertilizers has grown sky high since more is needed every year to achieve similar performance, permaculture offers similar yield performance without any of the costs of various chemicals.
Re:Overpopulation (Score:5, Insightful)
It would help if major religions would say "Go forth and multiply, check, done" too.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh jeez I hate this argument.
The more people you have the less likely you'll have another Einstein, because he'll be too busy trying to feed himself and not die of the liquid shits to work on theoretical physics problems to get you your FTL spaceship.
Re:"Arab Spring" (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh fuck off, you're no better than they are. You're just lucky enough not to have been born there.
Re:"Arab Spring" (Score:5, Insightful)
all people are born equal. However, all cultures are not.
That's true, but it flies in the face of your earlier comment that you have little sympathy for people born in the Middle East. Or maybe the two statements can coexist and you're just suffering from a severe empathy-deficiency.
I agree with you that there are objectively bad cultures. They're objectively worse because they reliably produce worse outcomes for their citizens as measured by most any metric you can come up with. But no one chooses to be born there. As you say, we're all born equal. So saying you have no pity for those with the misfortune to be born in a bad place is rather cold-hearted.
Re:"Arab Spring" (Score:4, Insightful)
If your mother is malnourished, your baby body (including your brain) will not be as fit as that of a baby who had a healthy, well fed mother - no matter how many times people say things like "all people are born equal".
If you continue to be malnourished throughout your childhood and beyond puberty, it will show in your physical and intellectual development.
The good news is, when you, trapped as you are in your intellectually and physically stunted body, fail to either improve your culture or transcend it, you will probably lack the ability to be properly insulted by the patronizing disapproval and weary headshaking some of those who were lucky enough to be born in a less dysfunctional culture will indulge in upon receiving word of your failure.
Bonus points if one of the reasons your culture is so shitty is because your poverty stricken country has had its wealth and resources sucked out of it decades (or generations) ago by vertically integrated private interests from a foreign land - maybe even the same one all those scolding cultural chauvinists hail from! - which took what it could of the wealth of your land, and gave as little back to your countrymen as possible.
Re:"Arab Spring" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's self inflicted -- people dumb enough to wait until they're starving -- and spending 70% of their incomes on bread -- before they hold their governments accountable probably deserve the kicking they're getting.
Have you every tried fighting a war while starving?
Also, you're forgetting the fact that none of these Arab countries were democracies: "holding their governments accountable" is pretty tough when the government has a huge military force and the ordinary people have none.
Re:Burning food for transport (Score:5, Informative)