This is taken directly from Michael Pollan, wrote recently in Newsweek Magazine
"The worldwide crisis over food prices is the direct result of the decision, made by the Bush administration in 2006, to begin feeding large quantities of American corn to American automobiles, in the form of ethanol. This fateful decision led to a run-up in corn prices, which in turn led farmers to plant more corn and less soy and wheat–leading to the surge in the price for all grains. But make no mistake: we’ve created a situation where American SUVs are competing with African eaters for grain. We can see who is winning.
The quickest way to relieve pressure on world food prices would be to cut U.S. subsidies for ethanol and drop import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. But there are longer-term steps we need to take as well if we are to ensure food for everyone. The other reason grain prices have spiked is that oil prices have spiked, and industrial agriculture has become heavily reliant on fossil fuel–for fertilizer, for pesticide, for processing and transportation. Today it takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy. We need to reduce the dependence of modern agriculture on oil, an eminently feasible goal–after all, agriculture is the original solar “technology,” and sustainable farmers have shown us how we might put our food system back on a foundation of sunlight. For example, when you take cattle off their typical feedlot diet of grain and allow them to eat grass, those hamburgers put less pressure on the prices of both oil and grain.
That brings me to the third, and perhaps least tractable, factor behind the run-up in world grain prices: the growing appetite for meat in places like China and India. Most of the world’s grain goes to feed animals, not people, and meat is a very inefficient use for that grain–it takes 10 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. There would be plenty of grain for everyone if we actually ate it as food and didn’t use it to make meat. Reducing world meat consumption–or feeding our food animals differently–would leave more grain for the world’s hungry.
It comes down to this: the world’s agricultural lands make up a precious and finite resource; we should be using it to grow food for people, not for cars or cattle."
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Stop shipping truckloads of antibiotics and medicines to third world hell holes.
Let overpopulation take care of itself naturally.
Problem solved.[/quote]
I agree, countries should look after themselves and not worry about overpopulated bumfuck countries that can’t seem to understand the concept of not bringing mouthes they can’t feed into the world.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
Stop shipping truckloads of antibiotics and medicines to third world hell holes.
Actually, sending truckloads of latex condoms, estrogen, proestrogen as well as RU486 might be even better in the long run.
Not to mention a more moral alternative. I’m only adding that for those who care. You obviously can’t be bothered with such considerations.[/quote]
Can’t disagree with that. When it really boils down to it, we simply have to many people in areas that its not sustainable to raise large groups of people, at least not until something drastic happens.
[quote]Joe84 wrote:
I agree, countries should look after themselves and not worry about overpopulated bumfuck countries that can’t seem to understand the concept of not bringing mouthes they can’t feed into the world.
[/quote]
This is a fallacy. There is no such thing as “overpopulation”. It’s like saying “overproduction.” Many non-industrialized nations are heavily dependent on agriculture as a mainstay of their economy and would do well with a larger population of laborers to work fields with a corresponding lack of agricultural related capital. The real problem is the fact that the populations that exist are not being utilized to best serve their own productive capacity. The governments that exist in many of these countries actually create the disparity we associate with “overpopulation” by over-regulation and a lack of respect for property. There are more than enough resources to feed the world population; its just a matter of government getting out of the way to let people feed themselves.
People will always reproduce when the benefit of an extra pair of hands is outweighed by the mouth that needs to be fed in the meantime to get those productive hands. We see this as the law of marginal utility. For example, in the US we have little need for a family of 10 to run a farm anymore nor do most American families see a potential benefit in an extra pair of hands compared to the cost of raising a child to a productive capacity – for that matter children are no longer looked as productive property anymore because of industrialization. In developing nations the extra mouth to feed is still seen as a positive investment. More people always mean more potential for productivity.
The concept of overpopulation is a conspiracy created by enviro-nutjob, tree-huggers and government. Somehow the most densely populated regions of the world (India and China) have figured out how to feed themselves yet the least densely populated (African nations) can’t manage because of government corruption and moral hazard created by foreign gov’t aid.
To answer the OP, it is a matter of supply and demand (cost and price) that will determine what foods a given population can and will enjoy. Buy meat now while it is cheap due to farmers selling at a loss because of rising grain prices. Next season there will be less meat produced and prices will rise.
(By the way, there is no such thing as all grass-fed meat unless it is roaming wild when it is killed. Even farm-raised, grass-fed beef is fed a grain diet for at least 90 days before going to market to help it gain weight. Ask your butcher for the specifics.)
[quote]lixy wrote:
Overpopulation depicts a situation where an organism’s numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat.[/quote]
A population will NEVER exceed a given habitat’s carrying capacity. That is information that is provided by the definition of carrying capacity.
On the other hand, production verses consumption determines to what extent any habitat will carry a given population. Before agriculture and technological innovation the environment couldn’t sustain much life. That is hardly the case now. My argument still stands.
Try finding overpopulation as the concept exists in any other species than humans and I will concede your point – in some cases humans have even made it possible for other species to exist in greater number than before (Fido, the family pet for example). Overpopulation is a made-up concept to guilt humans into consuming and reproducing less.
The fact that governments steal from the productive capacity of its citizens doesn’t help matters much either.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
A population will NEVER exceed a given habitat’s carrying capacity. That is information that is provided by the definition of carrying capacity.[/quote]
This is insane!
You are saying that overpopulation doesn’t exist simply because people die. You don’t even acknowledge that there is such a state where population outweighs resources.
Refusing to see it as an immediate problem is one thing. Dismissing the concept as conspiracy and myth is just insane.
Sigh.
I’m sure you have a giant conspiracy theory as to why governments “guilt humans into consuming and reroducing less”. Because common sense tells us that most sane governments would want you to consume till you’re blue in the face.
[quote]lixy wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
A population will NEVER exceed a given habitat’s carrying capacity. That is information that is provided by the definition of carrying capacity.
This is insane!
You are saying that overpopulation doesn’t exist simply because people die. You don’t even acknowledge that there is such a state where population outweighs resources.
Refusing to see it as an immediate problem is one thing. Dismissing the concept as conspiracy and myth is just insane.
Try finding overpopulation as the concept exists in any other species than humans and I will concede your point – in some cases humans have even made it possible for other species to exist in greater number than before (Fido, the family pet for example).
Overpopulation is a made-up concept to guilt humans into consuming and reroducing less.
Sigh.
The fact that governments steal from the productive capacity of its citizens doesn’t help matters much either.
I’m sure you have a giant conspiracy theory as to why governments “guilt humans into consuming and reroducing less”. Because common sense tells us that most sane governments would want you to consume till you’re blue in the face.[/quote]
[quote]lixy wrote:
You are saying that overpopulation doesn’t exist simply because people die. You don’t even acknowledge that there is such a state where population outweighs resources.
[/quote]
The word “overpopulation” suggests that there is an optimal population that any habitat can support. Show me how overpopulation would be measured. You claim that it is determined by the carrying capacity of a given habitat. Carrying capacity is only theoretical and unmeasurable. By definition the carrying capacity can never be exceeded and, in fact, is only determined by productive capacities. The fact is there have never been deaths caused by “overpopulation”.
What is measurable is productivity and consumption verses a given population (per capita wealth). I’ll stick to those metrics when determining the quality of life of a given population before I believe propaganda put out by Green Peace, et al.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Violence and social disparities come to mind.
[/quote]
Was overpopulation to blame during the Roman Empire as well? Are we to associate violence and social disparity to overpopulation every time there is violence or class warfare? What would be the distinction between overpopulation and just plain despotism?
The fact is that man is always conscious of scarcity (economic law) and therefore he struggles with the concept of “sustainability” which includes problems of feeding the population, for example. It is still a matter of productivity verses consumption.
I never said there is such thing as perpetual sustainability. Man still needs to work for his food no matter what the population density or habitat may allow. It is all determined by productivity and consumption. The environment does ultimately set the capacity but that capacity has changed and there is no reason to believe it will not continue to change with technology. We call such notions of overpopulation a “philosophical convenience” because it is a fabrication of reality to describe an indemonstrable concept.
Answer the question without a theoretical definition (for example, a hard measurement or procedure for measuring such a population) and I will concede my argument. Overpopulation can only exist as a theoretical concept and not as any real value.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Joe84 wrote:
I agree, countries should look after themselves and not worry about overpopulated bumfuck countries that can’t seem to understand the concept of not bringing mouthes they can’t feed into the world.
This is a fallacy. There is no such thing as “overpopulation”. It’s like saying “overproduction.” Many non-industrialized nations are heavily dependent on agriculture as a mainstay of their economy and would do well with a larger population of laborers to work fields with a corresponding lack of agricultural related capital. The real problem is the fact that the populations that exist are not being utilized to best serve their own productive capacity. The governments that exist in many of these countries actually create the disparity we associate with “overpopulation” by over-regulation and a lack of respect for property. There are more than enough resources to feed the world population; its just a matter of government getting out of the way to let people feed themselves.
People will always reproduce when the benefit of an extra pair of hands is outweighed by the mouth that needs to be fed in the meantime to get those productive hands. We see this as the law of marginal utility. For example, in the US we have little need for a family of 10 to run a farm anymore nor do most American families see a potential benefit in an extra pair of hands compared to the cost of raising a child to a productive capacity – for that matter children are no longer looked as productive property anymore because of industrialization. In developing nations the extra mouth to feed is still seen as a positive investment. More people always mean more potential for productivity.
The concept of overpopulation is a conspiracy created by enviro-nutjob, tree-huggers and government. Somehow the most densely populated regions of the world (India and China) have figured out how to feed themselves yet the least densely populated (African nations) can’t manage because of government corruption and moral hazard created by foreign gov’t aid.
To answer the OP, it is a matter of supply and demand (cost and price) that will determine what foods a given population can and will enjoy. Buy meat now while it is cheap due to farmers selling at a loss because of rising grain prices. Next season there will be less meat produced and prices will rise.
(By the way, there is no such thing as all grass-fed meat unless it is roaming wild when it is killed. Even farm-raised, grass-fed beef is fed a grain diet for at least 90 days before going to market to help it gain weight. Ask your butcher for the specifics.)[/quote]
Excellent, excellent response, this is the kind of discussion I was trying to wrangle up.
I really don't have much to add onto that, well said.
Funny you mention government and respect - Im 3 weeks into macroeconomics here in spring semester, and one of the first topics we covered is about economic growth and the link to governments respect for personal property and value. FYI, the US scored second in the world, second only to Switzerland, which isn't doing to bad itself. I believe Japan was 3rd and Canada 4th.
Most 3rd world countries were at the bottom.
[quote]lixy wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I’m sure you have a giant conspiracy theory as to why governments “guilt humans into consuming and reroducing less”. Because common sense tells us that most sane governments would want you to consume till you’re blue in the face.[/quote]
Interesting…I have to agree with you there
I agree with LIFT in the sense that overpopulation is a fallacy in some ways - I think an underlying issue is that we have to many mouths to feed in regions that simply cannot support itself, agriculturally or economically. One has to ask themselves if we are simply dumping money down an endless hole and trying to force a civilization to exist were natural selection and nature simply doesn’t dictate for it.
Either way, we don’t spend that much on foreign aid - it has been at .1% of our GDP for along time.
[quote]Get out the Door wrote:
Im 3 weeks into macroeconomics here in spring semester, and one of the first topics we covered is about economic growth and the link to governments respect for personal property and value.
[/quote]
After you are done with your state sponsored economics class you will need to be educated back to reality. Read the following short (comparatively) pdf book and then revisit your class notes:
I think it will help explain some of the concepts your prof could not.