A good big picture article as usual from Gail, read the whole thing.
Most of us have heard that Thomas Malthus made a forecast in 1798 that the world would run short of food. He expected that this would happen because in a world with limited agricultural land, food supply would fail to rise as rapidly as population. In fact, at the time of his writing, he believed that population was already in danger of outstripping food supply. As a result, he expected that a great famine would ensue.
Most of us don’t understand why he was wrong. A common misbelief is that the reason he was wrong is that he failed to anticipate improved technology. My analysis suggests that there were really two underlying factors which enabled the development and widespread use of technology. These were (1) the beginning of fossil fuel use, which ramped up immediately after his writing, and (2) a ramp up in non-governmental debt after World War II, which enabled the rapid uptake of new technology such the sale of cars and trucks. Without fossil fuels, availability of materials such as metal and glass (needed for most types of technology) would have been severely restricted. Without increased debt, common people would not have been able to afford the new types of high-tech products that businesses were able to produce.
Gail the Actuary is one of the best peak oil pundits to my mind. Mainly because she looks at the larger picture. Nothing new in this piece but it is worth the read to help flesh out (pardon the expression) the arc of the storyline up to now.
In Malthus' day agriculture was barely above a subsistence level. But down the road just a couple of decades, coal enabled steel and steam to bring about the first industrial revolution and the (second) ag revolution. Of course the article isn't about Malthus or food it's about fossil fuel and unlimited growth/credit. I don't worry too much about making food, we grow enough grain to feed twice the current population and we have the technology to make enough rDNA synthesised protein from E. Coli poop so that everyone can have a soylent-burger a day.
Technology improvement isn't the limiting factor, I'm sure we don't know as much as we think we do. Credit isn't a limiting factor either as long as the economy continues to grow to pay the interest. The limit is obvious, all we need do is look at what initiated the industrial/agricultural revolution and credit economy in the first place and continues to power it to this day: cheap, dense energy.
Don't fool yourself, none of us are "making" anything. We're all just hawkers; brokers, agents, clerks, middlemen, dealers, traders... just trying to make a sale – it's the fossil fuel slaves (masters?) who are doing the actual work.
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