blauSamstag wrote:
Oodain wrote:
blauSamstag wrote:
My take on malthus' theories on population - and I apologize if I'm not well enough read on him, i haven't put much thought into his theories in about 15 years - was that he based them on pre-industrial-revolution data.
Mechanization. Artificial fertilizer. Selective breeding of crops and livestock. Direct manipulation of recombinant DNA. Our ability to support increased population has come a long ways in the last 200 years.
yet never has more people gone without water, food and energy.
in rwanda they are right now struggling because there simply isnt enough land at all, never mind equipment for modern farming technique, this results in people selling their land to western investors who then proceed planting a cash crop, ie. not food. in the end it will make it even harder for them to be self supporting.
We produce enough food to feed everybody. These are political failings.
i dont think we do (not to western standards at least)
if we lived like the average indian then we would be able to support around 10 billion or so.
if you look at how much hunger there is in the world today then i would agree much of it is political and consumerism psychology at work, but keep in mind that in a century we will have hit the limit of that 10 billion anyway.
keep in mind these numbers are of course very incomplete as there is a huge amount of variables but in the end all that needs doing is look at the food shortage in africa right now to see there is a problem, maybe politics or a lack of modern equipment is to blame but in the future we will still be facing this question.
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//through chaos comes complexity//
the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.
22 Aug 2011, 3:33 pm
