How Much Longer Can We Feed The Planet's People?

Originally posted by username371

Forever.

Technology can create enough energy to grow enough life for us to feed forever.

The only problem is that this technology is being kept from us.



High-rise buildings, layers of soil, floor upon floor of high-intensity discharge lamps shining night and day, growing plants for food... enough for everyone, everywhere.

Or... Teams of small robots, tilling the land, planting the seed, watering, weeding, plucking bugs off the parts we eat, harvesting, mulching, and rotating crops would give us virtually a 100% yield of organic produce.

You are right. We have the tech. We have cures and solutions and other tech, all of which is hidden from us.

And in fact, my book offers a way to coax the information into the open, leading to abundance.

The link to my book (FREE!!!) is in my sig and I thank all who read and understand what I am offering.

[edit on 2/13/2009 by Amaterasu]

Originally posted by VelmaLu
Growing food requires oil.

Um... No it doesn't. Only because the energy from the plenum and its extraction methods have been hidden from us, forcing us into using oil (so that They profit), do we "need" oil to produce food.

Fertilizers require oil.

And we only need "fertilizer" when we try to raise the same crop, year after year, on the same plots of land. If we would wisely consult farmers, who understand the flow of crop rotation, we could rotate crops optimally and have no need of added petro-"fertilizer."

Distribution of food requires oil.

Only until we can use the energy of the plenum to this end.

Pumping water requires oil.

Same as above.

Manufacturing solar panels for high intensity lights requires oil.

Or... We could forget about solar panels and extract our energy from the plenum.

Starvation is not the result of a scarcity of food. Starvation is the result of a scarcity of oil.

True, except I would say that starvation is the result of technology suppression to increase profits, with the illusion that it is a scarcity of oil that is the issue.

Oil production has peaked while population grows exponentially along with demand as more nations become industrialized.

Can't argue this. [smile]

It's over folks. People will starve to death this year in mass numbers.

It is not over if the ideas I present in my book become mainstream... In that case, we can move from this scarcity paradigm we have been forced into to an abundance paradigm where every one of us 6.5+ billion people can choose how we live, with nothing lacking in our pursuit of our bliss.

Read my (FREE!!!) book to see how we might do this. Link in my sig.

[edit on 2/13/2009 by Amaterasu]

I don't want to read your book, so if you have a point you'd like to make, then post it. Please stop using this thread to promote your novel.

The reason that oil is tied to food is that in order to produce at the levels we have to sustain the population, fertilizers and machines are required. Now, if we had less population, we could move to a more sustainable agriculture model.

The development of alternative fuel sources still requires oil. Making solar panels requires oil, building a nuclear reactor requires oil. How would you make the transition?

reply to post by stevegmu

And there's a reason most soldiers come from the breadbasket of rural America and not from west-coast suburbs: we want to win the wars.

I really don't agree with that. But I went tothe CMO website and gleaned the following from it.

Battle of Little Big Horn, June 25, 26, 1876
Total CMO awarded: 22
I thought there were no survivors. How do we know which men to give awards and which not to? I suppose we asked the Indians.

Battle of Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890
Total CMO awarded: 18
About 300 Indians were killed, 25 soldiers. The Indians were armed with single shot carbines, the soldiers with repeating rifles and 2 Gatling Guns.

From the Korean War, place of birth, by last name letters A through C.

Terre Haute, IN; DeSoto, KS; Dehart, KY; Pickens, SC; McKinney, KY; Staten Island, NY; New Smyrna Bch, FL; Shelley, ID; Audubon, NJ; Erie, PA; Tichnor, AR; Blanchard, OK; New York, NY; Waterville, MD; Ludington, MI; E. Gulf, WV; Mindoro, WI; Tichnor, AR (Yes, this is #2); Worthington, KY; Harrisburg, MS; Madison, NJ; Brockton, MA; Charlotte, NC; Kansas City, MO; Lubbock, TX;
www.history.army.mil...
www.history.army.mil...


[edit on 2/13/2009 by donwhite]

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Namasté

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I read some prophets prediction that by 2028 hunger would gradually be overcomed! But a couple hundred years later she also predicted that there would be another famine.

reply to post by xGunthrux

I read some prophets prediction that by 2028 hunger would gradually be overcome! But a couple hundred years later she also predicted that there would be another famine.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was one of the pioneers in the field that has come to be called “political economics.” Malthus had the benefit of Adam Smith’s (1723-1790) seminal work, “The Wealth of Nations” published in 1776, and which is still the starting point in every graduate school on business economic theory.

There is nothing hard about the Malthusian Theory. Any demographer could have expressed the same concerns. It is this: populations tend to grow geometrically, but food productions grows only arithmetically. Put simply: More people, less land. Malthus visualized the two lines crossing in about 7-8 human generations. Using 20 years as a human generation, that put the danger period around 1950. Yes, Malthus was wrong on his date, but he was NOT wrong on his observations that underlay the theory!

Malthus could not have foreseen the 19th century’s agricultural revolution which has seen the productivity per man hour rise exponentially! Add to that the 20th century’s green revolution of the 1960s where chemical fertilizers were made available around the world. Somewhat like Hubbert’s Peak Oil theory, I see the time when there is NO MORE LAND to put into food production. Too much asphalt, too LITTLE water and too much mis-use of what land we do have spells a human disaster just around the corner.

The Christian Children’s Fund includes in its regular tv advertising for support, the claim that 28,000 children die every day from starvation or from diseases exacerbated by malnutrition. The UN’s own numbers are somewhat lower - in the high teens - but definitions are the key word in those differences. What does “exacerbated” mean, from instance. Even 17,000 dead children every day ought to raise our eyebrows but it seems not to. We still prefer to use corn for uneconomic ethanol that to feed starving children. Hey, it’s all about choices!

Great thread, don. My thinking on this changed in the 1970's when I bought the cookbook, Diet for a Small Planet. The Institute for Food and Development Policy, or Food First, sees hunger as the result of social injustice, not that there is lack of food.
Food First

I can remember reading years ago in the MSM, reports of food aide piling up on African ports and not being distributed to the poor, as waring factions wouldn't allow it to be distributed. African nations with starving citizens (who were being shown in tv ads such as the ones you and I see) were actually exporting food. And I remember reading years ago that canned goods, when they were first introduced, were supposed to end world hunger.

IMHO we are still a ways from not being able to feed everyone due to a growing population or shrinking land. While I believe we do need to take population growth and wise water/land use into consideration, it has been man's inhumanity (or mere thoughtlessness/selfishness) to man that is the root of the problem of world hunger.

edit to...I wanted to add this article, written by a Food First director but in another publication
Food Rebellions: 7 Steps to Solving the Food Crisis

You are right. It is about choices we make, as individuals and groups we belong to.



[edit on 31-5-2009 by desert]

reply to post by desert

My thinking on this changed in the 1970's when I bought the cookbook, Diet for a Small Planet. The Institute for Food and Development Policy, or Food First, sees hunger as the result of social injustice, not that there is lack of food. Food First

It is the capitalist system that impoverishes millions of people. We must have cheap labor to exploit. Americans are getting a real taste of that - or a lesson in - when what we thought was American CAPITAL moves from Detroit to Shanghai. But we are dumb and don’t understand what is going on. Globalization is a euphonism for capitalization.

However, I do not accept the glib pronouncement that there is enough food but for proper distribution the planet can be fed. I doubt that. This approach is in deep denial of the real factors causing hunger - lack of land reform and mechanized agriculture.

I can remember reading years ago reports of food aide piling up on African ports and not being distributed to the poor, as warring factions wouldn't allow it to be distributed.

Again, I deny that. Sure, there were occasional instances where that was the case but that was not the rule. This is a SALVE to the CONSCIENCES of the rich and powerful Americans for letting the starvation go on. BLAME THE VICTIMS. We are absolved. We sent the food, it was they who could not distribute it. Our reponsiblity ends when we pay the shipping bill? Uh uh. I call it avoidance!

While I believe we do need to take population growth and wise water/land use into consideration, it has been man's inhumanity (or mere thoughtlessness/selfishness) to man that is the root of the problem of world hunger.

Replay my post immediately above.

If you don’t change direction, you will end up where you are headed. Chinese proverb.