Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4544 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
1. The United States is the world's largest food exporter by a huge margin. Wheat, corn, beef, soybeans, sorghum, you name it. The American surplus of corn alone is 55 MILLION tons. I don't know what that looks like in terms of calories but I imagine it's a rather large number.
2. The US is attacked at the UN every year because it produces too much food. So much food that it actually drives down the price of agricultural products in developing countries, leading to market distortions and the destruction of small/local farmers in many countries.
4. Half of Americans are overweight and could stand to lose a couple pounds.
5. Healthier Americans would consume less food (no need to sustain that extra body fat).
6. When we finally give up this corn ethanol nonsense (and we're already starting to drop it), that quarter of the corn crop that is currently being burned will be shifted over to the food industry.
7. Most of America's grain is given to animals. As we all know, meat is an extremely grain-intensive food source.
Basically, I'm not worried. I'm so not worried about it that I'm literally betting my life on it by ignoring the advice to run off to the countryside and start a farm.
Let's compare qualities of life in 20 years. _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
A decade ago, the grain used for livestock from the US alone would've been able to feed nearly 20% of the population of the world. Include waste from spoilage and whatnot and we're at nearly another ~2 billion. Toss in grain use for livestock world wide and we're probably at ~50+% of current food production. That's a pretty big excess IMO!
We could probably double food production and we would still have people starving. It's not about lack of food, it's about greed and waste, which has been around for decades wrt the farming revolution. Besides, how can you condone stuff w/ absolute headlines like what the OP linked? _________________
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 1336 Location: Stalag 13
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
yesplease, you bring up a good point.
Quote:
People consume a little less than half (48 percent) of the world’s grain directly—as steamed rice, bread, tortillas, or millet cakes, for instance. Roughly one third (35 percent) becomes livestock feed. And a growing share, 17 percent, is used to make ethanol and other fuels.
In a perfect world, less grains could be given to livestock and instead used for human consumption. But the problem is that we don't live in a perfect world. It's never going to happen. People want their meat, no matter what. Same with driving cars. I'm so tired of idealistic-minded people saying that alternative technologies and conservation are going to make everything ok. It won't because that's not the way the real world works. The real world is not a controlled laboratory experiment. The real world is full of unpredictable, selfish, and greedy people who will never voluntarily give up what they think they need. _________________ Now why didn't I think of that?
Last edited by Hogan on Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 577 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
vetusfirma wrote:
but micki, your not cool if you don't scandalize by using the word cannibal. and there is also the donner party.
I kind of think they will make good fertilizer, and we are gonna need fertilizer, you know like the pilgrims. Or we could boil them down like whale's and sell the oil, or use it in lamps. Romans had a lot of luck burning them. And people are cheap, look how many there are, and its a renewable resource, you will never run out.
Maybe we could make a book about 101 uses for......well you get the idea.
CANNIBALISM FOR DUMMIES.
Part 1. The best nibbles.
* Ladyfingers.
* Rump Roast
Part 2. Things you can make from People Parts.
* Lampshades.
* Soap.
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
Tyler_JC wrote:
1. The United States is the world's largest food exporter by a huge margin. Wheat, corn, beef, soybeans, sorghum, you name it. The American surplus of corn alone is 55 MILLION tons. I don't know what that looks like in terms of calories but I imagine it's a rather large number.
.....
7. Most of America's grain is given to animals. As we all know, meat is an extremely grain-intensive food source.
Basically, I'm not worried. I'm so not worried about it that I'm literally betting my life on it by ignoring the advice to run off to the countryside and start a farm.
Nobody ever said Americans were in trouble.
I never was a fan of the "run off to the countryside" theory.
however...
This is a serious issue.
Die-off always begins at the "edges".
Half the people on this planet live on $2 / day.
With a budget like that, these folks aren't eating California almonds!
A triple increase in grain prices would guarantee a Malthusian Die-off.
This bull market in commodities is not over.
A decade ago, the grain used for livestock from the US alone would've been able to feed nearly 20% of the population of the world. Include waste from spoilage and whatnot and we're at nearly another ~2 billion. Toss in grain use for livestock world wide and we're probably at ~50+% of current food production. That's a pretty big excess IMO!
We could probably double food production and we would still have people starving. It's not about lack of food, it's about greed and waste, which has been around for decades wrt the farming revolution. Besides, how can you condone stuff w/ absolute headlines like what the OP linked?
And I will still be eating grain fed beef and throwing my leftovers to the chickens while many others are starving. I case you have not noticed we do not live in a just world. You can hate the fact or you can embrace it, the fact, however, will not change.
Yes people will be starving around the globe while I am still throwing away unwanted portions from McDonalds. Last Time I checked there is no way to transport that food without spoiling it.
Yes people will starve while producing nations are rolling in excess production. If we shipped off the excess that would reduce local supply and we would vote bums into office who would institute policies to reduce exports and keep the price low at home (a' la the rice exporting nations which stopped all exports in order to keep the price of rice down at home).
Can we measure the point where all of those things will break? Of course not, right now we just have the projections for consumption and production that we have... and in a world populated by over 6 billion people a few million tonnes is not much of an excess. _________________ Nature is complete because it does not serve itself.
The sage places himself after and finds himself before,
Ignores his desire and finds himself content.
He is complete because he does not serve himself. -Lao Tze
Last edited by wisconsin_cur on Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:37 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:35 am Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
wisconsin_cur wrote:
yesplease wrote:
A decade ago, the grain used for livestock from the US alone would've been able to feed nearly 20% of the population of the world. Include waste from spoilage and whatnot and we're at nearly another ~2 billion. Toss in grain use for livestock world wide and we're probably at ~50+% of current food production. That's a pretty big excess IMO!
We could probably double food production and we would still have people starving. It's not about lack of food, it's about greed and waste, which has been around for decades wrt the farming revolution. Besides, how can you condone stuff w/ absolute headlines like what the OP linked?
And I will still be eating grain fed beef and throwing my leftovers to the chickens while many others are starving. I case you have not noticed we do not live in a just world. You can hate the fact or you can embrace it will not change.
....
Bingo! wisconsin_cur
This makes the cornucopia "lets save people by not feeding grain to cattle" a ridiculously weak argument.
Why should Joe Sixpack give up on meat?
So there can be even more hungry mouths to feed in the 3rd world next year!
How does that help anything except make the die-off even greater?
A decade ago, the grain used for livestock from the US alone would've been able to feed nearly 20% of the population of the world. Include waste from spoilage and whatnot and we're at nearly another ~2 billion. Toss in grain use for livestock world wide and we're probably at ~50+% of current food production. That's a pretty big excess IMO!
We could probably double food production and we would still have people starving. It's not about lack of food, it's about greed and waste, which has been around for decades wrt the farming revolution. Besides, how can you condone stuff w/ absolute headlines like what the OP linked?
And I will still be eating grain fed beef and throwing my leftovers to the chickens while many others are starving. I case you have not noticed we do not live in a just world. You can hate the fact or you can embrace it, the fact, however, will not change.
Yup. Peopel need to come up with solutions based on how things are, not how they dream things could be in a perfect world. _________________ "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…"
Sir Winston Churchill
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
Drifter wrote:
In a perfect world, less grains could be given to livestock and instead used for human consumption. But the problem is that we don't live in a perfect world. It's never going to happen. People want their meat, no matter what. Same with driving cars. I'm so tired of idealistic-minded people saying that alternative technologies and conservation are going to make everything ok. It won't because that's not the way the real world works. The real world is not a controlled laboratory experiment. The real world is full of unpredictable, selfish, and greedy people who will never voluntarily give up what they think they need.
Ditto for overly optimistic scenarios, and the same goes for those predicting huge "die-offs". However I think they are both useful as possible courses that could be taken as well as illustrations of the most basic human characteristics. Along those lines, people probably aren't starving simply because of fossil fuel price increases, or even starving for the most part due to them, since they've been starving for a long time. They're starving because groups in America and Africa, or whoever, are greedy. Sure, a population already stretched to the brink by a corrupt regime who was starving in the first place is probably going to be hit harder by rising food prices. But that was just the straw on the camel's back. The problem is that their living in a hell hole on a minimal, or worse, diet, for the jollies of some other group. _________________
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
What about if people stopped eating meat and converted to vegetarianism. How much more food would we be able to grow ? Could that solve the food problem, at least for a few years. _________________ We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. Your culture will adapt to service ours. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
A decade ago, the grain used for livestock from the US alone would've been able to feed nearly 20% of the population of the world. Include waste from spoilage and whatnot and we're at nearly another ~2 billion. Toss in grain use for livestock world wide and we're probably at ~50+% of current food production. That's a pretty big excess IMO!
We could probably double food production and we would still have people starving. It's not about lack of food, it's about greed and waste, which has been around for decades wrt the farming revolution. Besides, how can you condone stuff w/ absolute headlines like what the OP linked?
And I will still be eating grain fed beef and throwing my leftovers to the chickens while many others are starving. I case you have not noticed we do not live in a just world. You can hate the fact or you can embrace it, the fact, however, will not change.
Yes people will be starving around the globe while I am still throwing away unwanted portions from McDonalds. Last Time I checked there is no way to transport that food without spoiling it.
Yes people will starve while producing nations are rolling in excess production. If we shipped off the excess that would reduce local supply and we would vote bums into office who would institute policies to reduce exports and keep the price low at home (a' la the rice exporting nations which stopped all exports in order to keep the price of rice down at home).
It isn't about shipping off the excess or trying to transport leftovers from Micky D's, but thanks for the strawmen. It is however about grossly inefficient use of food and capital for greed while others starve when they don't have to. Sure, we can't transport leftover hamburgers to Africa, but we could simply not raise an excessive amount of meat and have more than enough additional grain for those who are in need. That being said, if we decide to use our excess in certain ways because we are greedy, that's fine. But I wouldn't think for a second that we don't have plenty of excess wrt food or that fossil fuel prices would result in some basic inability to produce enough food to feed the world. We're simply greedy and would rather have grain fed livestock and/or Ethanol and/or etc than to do something about those starving. But, again, that isn't about the significant effect of fossil fuel prices on food, as was seen with people starving for the past century w/ much lower FF prices, it's about greed.
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Can we measure the point where all of those things will break? Of course not, right now we just have the projections for consumption and production that we have... and in a world populated by over 6 billion people a few million tonnes is not much of an excess.
A few tonnes isn't, however the amount we waste due to greed/apathy is. _________________
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:04 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
Tyler_JC wrote:
1. The United States is the world's largest food exporter by a huge margin. . . .
2. The US is attacked at the UN every year because it produces too much food. . . .Basically, I'm not worried. I'm so not worried about it that I'm literally betting my life on it by ignoring the advice to run off to the countryside and start a farm.
But isn't the idea that we only produce so much food *because* of ff? Without cheap ff we won't have nearly as much production. Right? _________________ ~Laura
"If you weren't smart enough to plan ahead then Doom on you!" ~Dodo bird
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: Re: You. Will. Not. Be. Able. To. Get. Food.
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Yes people will be starving around the globe while I am still throwing away unwanted portions from McDonalds. Last Time I checked there is no way to transport that food without spoiling it..
LOL, but didn't you see Supersize Me? Those fries last FOREVER. _________________ ~Laura
"If you weren't smart enough to plan ahead then Doom on you!" ~Dodo bird
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It is however about grossly inefficient use of food and capital for greed while others starve when they don't have to. Sure, we can't transport leftover hamburgers to Africa, but we could simply not raise an excessive amount of meat and have more than enough additional grain for those who are in need. That being said, if we decide to use our excess in certain ways because we are greedy, that's fine. But I wouldn't think for a second that we don't have plenty of excess wrt food or that fossil fuel prices would result in some basic inability to produce enough food to feed the world. We're simply greedy and would rather have grain fed livestock and/or Ethanol and/or etc than to do something about those starving. But, again, that isn't about the significant effect of fossil fuel prices on food, as was seen with people starving for the past century w/ much lower FF prices, it's about greed.
