[dohboi]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/23/paul-ehrlich-global-collapse-warning

Paul Ehrlich, a prophet of global population doom who is gloomier than ever: Population surge means there is only a 10% chance of avoiding a collapse of world civilisation, says professor

The population of Earth has doubled since Paul Ehrlich first warned the world that there were too many humans. Three and a half billion people later, he is more pessimistic than ever, estimating there is only a 10% chance of avoiding a collapse of global civilisation.

"Among the knowledgeable people there is no more conversation about whether the danger is real," Ehrlich told the Guardian. "Civilisations have collapsed before: the question is whether we can avoid the first time [an] entire global civilisation has given us the opportunity of having the whole mess collapse."

[kiwichick]

listen up people

[EnergyUnlimited]

This "total" civilization collapse, eg collapse to XVII century type of life, would actually be a blessing in disguise, if we are going to survive as a species during pending millenium.

[Daniel_Plainview]

I don't follow his logic. Yes, greater scarcity of resources will lead to greater dieoff ... but how does he logically leap from "greater dieoff" to "total collapse"?

How does going from 7 billion to 1 billion (due to dieoff) lead to a "total collapse" of human civilization? On the contrary, it's likely that once Earth dwindles down to 1 billion or fewer (+/-), then a sustainable population level would have been achieved.

[dsula]

Easy to predict. The question is when.

[Sixstrings]

Easy to predict. The question is when.

When global capitalism breaks down, and therefore cheap food exports. We could have hunger and starvation right here in the US -- just as Russians went hungry during the Soviet collapse, food rotting on railcars.

[dsula]

Easy to predict. The question is when.

When global capitalism breaks down, and therefore cheap food exports. We could have hunger and starvation right here in the US -- just as Russians went hungry during the Soviet collapse, food rotting on railcars.

Yeah, of course, but when? I'm in the midst of some life transitions and it matter to me whether the starving starts in 5, 10, 50 or 100 years.

[ritter]

Easy to predict. The question is when.

When global capitalism breaks down, and therefore cheap food exports. We could have hunger and starvation right here in the US -- just as Russians went hungry during the Soviet collapse, food rotting on railcars.

Yeah, of course, but when? I'm in the midst of some life transitions and it matter to me whether the starving starts in 5, 10, 50 or 100 years.

Life transitions? I like to eat daily, transitions be damned!

[Plantagenet]

When global capitalism breaks down... We could have hunger and starvation right here in the US -- just as Russians went hungry during the Soviet collapse, food rotting on railcars.

Actually, the food shortages in the Soviet Union had nothing to do with capitalism. The problem resulted from the failure of socialism as it collapsed, just as the horrible famines of the early 1920s in the fledging USSR were caused by the forced collectivization of existing agriculture as socialism was violently imposed.

Ehrlich's concern is overpopulation----and neither capitalism nor socialism can magically make more food appear at the same rate as the world population is growing.

[Oakley]

When global capitalism breaks down... We could have hunger and starvation right here in the US -- just as Russians went hungry during the Soviet collapse, food rotting on railcars.

Actually, the food shortages in the Soviet Union had nothing to do with capitalism. The problem resulted from the failure of socialism as it collapsed, just as the horrible famines of the early 1920s in the fledging USSR were caused by the forced collectivization of existing agriculture as socialism was violently imposed.

Ehrlich's concern is overpopulation----and neither capitalism nor socialism can magically make more food appear at the same rate as the world population is growing.

Right on.

The more government, the more likely that productive efforts of humans will be thwarted. That is because government, socialism or capitalism or any other "ism", is a mechanism to take wealth from the majority and put it in the hands of those who run and control the government. Not much has changed since the days of John I 'Lackland" Plantagenet, King of England as portrayed in Robin Hood. It is simply a mass delusion that government protects freedom, government can effectively manage economic activities, or that we are free because we can vote. If we relied upon government for food production, starvation would already be rampant.

[PrestonSturges]

Vast piles of grain rotted during the Great Depression in the US. There was no price support mechanism and suddenly it wasn't worth the expense of hauling grain into the cities.

This was because of a couple years of good weather, subsidies during ww1 that encouraged unsustainable overproduction, and the return of European land to food production after the war.

i guess it would not take much political instability to recreate a failure of the agricultural system.

[kiwichick]

keeping agriculture operational should be one of the highest priorities of any sensible government

[dohboi]

Yes, agricultural production. But the point is that you can have excellent ag production, but if you can't get all that food to the people that need it, the food spoils and the people starve.

So it's ag production AND transportation/distribution/processing... There are a lot of things that can go wrong along the way, when your economic structure is in the toilet and you are facing more and more frequent disruptions of fuel supply, or at best, huge price swings. Add to that a climate that is getting hairier every year--devastating floods in one county, desiccating drought in the next--and you have a prescription for mega-disasters. And let's not forget about falling aquifers and vanishing supplies of phosphorus and other inputs (the sources themselves, and the energy to mine them and transport them...).Even if you get lucky one year and everything manages to come together at the right moment, the chances of getting lucky every year get more and more remote.

Meanwhile, you have a very few enormous 'too big to fail' corporations that control the whole sector and are only in it for the money. They are not gonna give a crap if vast hordes die of starvation if they can make a better buck selling it to whomever has the scratch, here or abroad, or by feeding all the grain to pigs and cows to sell to the ever-shrinking elite who can still afford such meats.

[Pops]

This was because of a couple years of good weather, subsidies during ww1 that encouraged unsustainable overproduction, and the return of European land to food production after the war.

The change in ag was a lot more dramatic than that and a lot more tied to resources than whatever one time political events.

Yes, exports during the war caused many farmers to over extend themselves. But what did they borrow money for? Farmers had bought up poor lands before 1920 to put into rowcrops, but it was tractors and implements and so on that caused the big shakeout. Farming went from subsistence to business overnight and already by the mid 20's the farm foreclosure rate had reached 18%.

This was the time of the great transition away from animal traction to mechanical. During the twenties there was a major increase in labor productivity and per acre harvests due to mechanization (read "oil") and so the resulting overabundance of supply caused prices to be weak way before 1929 - and when the taste for commodities investment evaporated after the crash...

In many ways the adoption of the tractor in the interwar period symbolizes the technological changes that occurred in the agricultural sector. This changeover in the power source that farmers used had far-reaching consequences and altered the organization of the farm and the farmers' lifestyle. The adoption of the tractor was land saving (by releasing acreage previously used to produce crops for workstock) and labor saving. At the same time it increased the risks of farming because farmers were now much more exposed to the marketplace. They could not produce their own fuel for tractors as they had for the workstock. Rather, this had to be purchased from other suppliers. Repair and replacement parts also had to be purchased, and sometimes the repairs had to be undertaken by specialized mechanics. The purchase of a tractor also commonly required the purchase of new complementary machines; therefore, the decision to purchase a tractor was not an isolated one. (White, 2001; Ankli, 1980; Ankli and Olmstead, 1981; Musoke, 1981; Whatley, 1987). These changes resulted in more and more farmers purchasing and using tractors, but the rate of adoption varied sharply across the United States.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/smiley.1920s.final

The great mechanization revolution enabled by abundant oil allowed overproduction and the resultant farm collapse of the '20's. Just like the Green revolution enabled by genetics but mainly irrigation & fertilizer again led to overproduction and precipitated the farm crisis of the '80s.

Kinda points to the problems we'd face with under-production should those elements become limited doesn't it?

[PrestonSturges]

Keep in mind that under decades of executive orders, the President can take take over all aspects of agricultural production in case of national crisis. I'm sure someone would rather let their cows die than let the National Guard bail hay for them, but I don't think there would be a choice. Obviously it's not a solution for more than a couple seasons.

[Oakley]

Keep in mind that under decades of executive orders, the President can take take over all aspects of agricultural production in case of national crisis. I'm sure someone would rather let their cows die than let the National Guard bail [sic] hay for them, but I don't think there would be a choice. Obviously it's not a solution for more than a couple seasons.

Tell me how the National Guard is going to know when to show up to bale hay. Hay is cut, fluffed, baled, and moved with mechanical equipment, generally pulled by a tractor. It does not take the National Guard; it just takes the farm family. Most hay is put up in large round bales these days with a minimum of actual physical labor. Cattle operations are generally small scale, the average cattle ranch being only 250 A, so even if that is all pasture and hay fields, you are talking about only 75 or so in the herd, and probably less.

But your input shows why government taking over agriculture would result in lower production. The bureaucrats don't know any more about operating a cattle ranch than you do, and that is where the problem lies. This is why the Soviet centrally controlled agriculture system could not even feed the Soviet population, with some of the best agricultural land in the world.

If food becomes scarce to the point that many people cannot be saved from starvation, then I fully expect that government will attempt to seize agricultural production, under the pretense of feeding the needy, but as usual those in power will keep it for themselves and their friends. Farmers need to survive too, and they certainly will not look kindly on having their production taken from them, no matter what the national emergency. Judging from my own reaction and knowing the attitude of my neighbors, I can say with some certainty that confiscation of our agricultural output would precipitate revolution.

[PrestonSturges]

Well Ehrlich's concept of "total collapse" isn't based on black helicopters and some enemy within.

[kiwichick]

during ww2 governments round the world introduced rationing and that will be what happens post peak

[Pops]

I never have understood how property confiscation would somehow alleviate shortages. I don't see the US ever confiscating property wholesale, product maybe, legislating price controls for sure but even rationing is way down some dark road. Property rights and rule of law are our basic tenets but the right to buy stuff if you've got the moola is right up there.

The deal with rationing is you need to have control of the market in order to control who gets served and in a market that crosses borders, rationing in one entity only serves to reduce price in the others.

I'd argue that the high taxes imposed on Europeans in the 90s contributed to the boom in SUVs in the US to the extent the EUs reduced demand lowered prices worldwide.

Don't know if it's true or not but it sounds good...

[dohboi]

"Can Collapse of Global Civilization Be Avoided?" by Paul and Anne Ehrlich
Royal Society
PDF

...humanity’s global civilization—the worldwide, increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded—is threatened with collapse by an array of environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’ [4], facing what the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems [5].

The most serious of these problems show signs of rapidly escalating severity, especially climate disruption. But other elements could potentially also contribute to a collapse:
>an accelerating extinction of animal and plant populations and species, which could lead to a loss of ecosystem services essential for human survival;

>land degradation and land-use change;

>a pole-to-pole spread of toxic compounds;

>ocean acidification and eutrophication (dead zones);

>worsening of some aspects of the epidemiological environment (factors that make human populations susceptible to infectious diseases);

>depletion of increasingly scarce resources [6,7], including especially groundwater, which is being overexploited in many key agricultural areas [8]; and

>resource wars [9].

These are not separate problems; rather they interact in two gigantic complex adaptive systems: the biosphere system and the human socio-economic system. The negative manifestations of these interactions are often referred to as ‘the human predicament’ [10], and determining how to prevent it from generating a global collapse is perhaps the foremost challenge confronting humanity.

(My formatting and emphases.)