Global warming world famine

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…SUPPORT that please! How do you KNOW!
..… (my emphasis)

Is he a climate scientist?
Has he done actual research into climate change?
Where did he get his figures from?
Do the majority of climate scientists agree with his figures?
Somehow I don’t think so:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Temp/2004.htm

“…the average global ...[text shortened]... pt to the situation and fast and that means developing and using economical alternatives to oil.[/b]

dont get me wrong . I agree we need to get off our dependancy to oil.There is not an infinite supply of it for one. I dispute the man-made global warming hypothesis that Al Gore, Michael Moore, Bono, and the such(none of whom are climatologist) are turning into a quasi religion Give me a little time to support my claims w/ data. My chess games come first🙂 I will gather it up just as soon as I am caught up.

one more thing,all you got to do is google "climatologist against global warming" and you will get a ton of them,but I will be back.

Originally posted by utherpendragon
one more thing,all you got to do is google "climatologist against global warming" and you will get a ton of them,but I will be back.

…one more thing, all you got to do is google "climatologist against global warming" and you will get a ton of them
..…

Yes, of course; they are a very angry noisy minority.
wouldn’t you be pissed off if the vast magority in your profession didn't take your position seriously?

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…one more thing, all you got to do is google "climatologist against global warming" and you will get a ton of them
..…

Yes, of course; they are a very angry noisy minority.
wouldn’t you be pissed off if the vast magority in your profession didn't take your position seriously?[/b]

ARGUMENTUM AD POPULUM,nice come back

Originally posted by MacSwain
Well said. I agee even though not sure about 80% being a correct number to achieve this "better place."

I do agree nature will eventually correct mans malfeasance to protect itself by inflicting famine, flood or other trauma at its disposal and "make the world a far better place" when necessary.

Good grief. Please tell us you are not serious?

Can you imagine a randomized 80% loss of population: the loss of knowledge, infrastructure, law enforcement, government, food production, sanitation, transport etc.

Even if you were lucky enough to survive, life as you know it would be over and instead of sitting in the warm of your Mum's spare room reading the beano and playing rhp, you would be fending off hoards of pillagers from the next street who have decided that you are the next best thing to suck on since the local Maccy Dees staff didn't turn in for their shift.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
I have been continually worried about the possibility of a world famine occurring because our world agriculture is so economically dependent on oil that when the oil finally becomes too scarce we simply not be able to produce enough to eat unless we adapt by getting rid of our economic dependency on oil (I think I already made a thread about this but ...[text shortened]... esearch and development into renewables to get rid of our dependency on oil as SOON as possible!

You believe too many journalists who are trying to scare up ratings, fame, and attention:

http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Articles/TRUTHJRN.txt

The editorial began by reporting some of the book's

heartening findings. But the newspaper then continued: "Enough

of Simon. Now turn to the newspaper." There followed a litany

of horrible facts including "mass graves in Bosnia," African HIV

epidemics and famines, the killing of Chinese infants, Chechnya

massacres, and "Children all over the world... being sexually

exploited."

What is the connection between these two apparently-

unconnected themes - a) improving material trends, and b) various

social ills? Apparently the newspaper believes that if the

public learns about the improving trends in material conditions,

people will grow complacent and cease struggling to make social

conditions better. The implicit theory is that false assertions

about negative trends will mobilize people to address problems

with greater efforts.


...

Other reviewers agree. From The Economist of London:

He [Simon] is right to argue that people are too ready
to believe doomsayers, but [he] fails to recognise that
gloom has its uses. Dire warnings have averted
disasters. Food productivity rose in the 1970s partly
because fear of famine spurred governments to subsidize
agricultural research. Similarly, fear of global
warming is now encouraging research into ways of reduc-
ing the cost of clean fuels. If human progress is
inevitable, that may be because humans are always
worrying about what might go wrong.


A qualification is needed. Nothing said here criticizes

honest warnings of danger. An influential physicist

provocatively asked, at a conference about the same book: "Have

not the doomsayers helped produce a better environment?" I

answered: Those who warn against [real] trouble help us and

deserve our thanks even if the warning is wrong - as long as the

person raising the alarm is not willfully ignorant or dishonest.

But some forecasts of danger are knowingly exaggerated or

false. Stanford atmospheric scientist Stephen Schneider says:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound
to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but -- which
means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats,
the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not
just scientists but human beings as well. And like most
people we'd like to see the world a better place, which
in this context translates into our working to reduce
the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To
do this we need to get some broad-based support, to
capture the public's imagination. That, of course,
entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to
offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic
statements, and make little mention of any doubts we
might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently
find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula.
Each of us has to decide what the right balance is
between being effective and being honest. I hope that
means being both.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…Is there anything like that now?
..…

You are talking about AIDS.
But I don’t think AIDS will kill off enough of those pesty humans unless it mutates to spread like the common cold.
-maybe swine flue would do the trick if it mutates into something really nasty?[/b]

How funny that people who deal with plants would serious dream up scenarious of actual harm happening now in order to prevent the potential for harm from a scenario that has virtually no change of ever happening.


http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n2-1.html

No one can rationally look at the evidence today and still claim, for example, that we are running out of food or energy. But those who did not know Julian or of his writings in the 1970s and early 1980s cannot fully appreciate how viciously he was attacked—from both the left and the right. Paul Ehrlich once snarled that Simon’s writings proved that "the one thing the earth will never run out of is imbeciles." A famous professor at the University of Wisconsin wrote, "Julian Simon could be dismissed as a simpleminded nut case, if his ideas weren’t so dangerous."

To this day I remain convinced that the endless ad hominem attacks were a result of the fact that—try as they would—Simon’s critics never once succeeded in puncturing holes in his data or his theories. What ultimately vindicated his theories was that the doomsayers’ predictions of global famine, $100 a barrel oil, nuclear winter, catastrophic depletion of the ozone layer, falling living standards, and so on were all discredited by events. For example, the year 2000 is almost upon us, and we can now see that the direction in which virtually every trend of human welfare has moved has been precisely the opposite of that predicted by Global 2000. By now Simon and Kahn’s contrarian conclusions in The Resourceful Earth look amazingly prescient.

The ultimate embarrassment for the Malthusians was when Paul Ehrlich bet Simon $1,000 in 1980 that five resources (of Ehrlich’s choosing) would be more expensive in 10 years. Ehrlich lost: 10 years later every one of the resources had declined in price by an average of 40 percent.

Julian Simon loved good news. And the good news of his life is that, today, the great bogeyman of our time, Malthusianism, has, like communism, been relegated to the dustbin of history with the only remaining believers to be found on the faculties of American universities. The tragedy is that it is the Paul Ehrlichs of the world who still write the textbooks that mislead our children with wrongheaded ideas.
...
Among the many prominent converts to the Julian Simon world view on population and environmental issues were Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. Despite howls of protest from the international population control lobby, in 1984 the Reagan administration adopted Simon’s position—that the world is not overpopulated and that people are resource creators, not resource destroyers—at the United Nations Population Conference in Mexico City. The Reaganites called it "supply-side demographics." Meanwhile, in the late 1980s, Simon traveled by invitation to the Vatican to explain his theories on population growth. A year later Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter urged nations to treat their people "as productive assets."

Simon’s theory about the benefits of people also led him to write extensively about immigration. In 1989 he published The Economic Consequences of Immigration, which argued that immigrants make "substantial net economic contributions to the United States." His research in the 1980s showed that, over their lifetimes, immigrants on balance pay thousands of dollars more in taxes than they use in government services, making them a good investment for native-born Americans. It was arguably the most influential book on U.S. immigration policy in 25 years. Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, has credited Simon’s work with helping "keep wide open America’s gates to immigrants."

We at the Cato Institute published three of Julian Simon’s books and dozens of his articles and studies. We were always drawn to his celebration of the individual. Simon believed that human progress depended not only on creative and ingenious minds but also on free institutions. He often marveled that the only place on earth where life expectancy actually fell in the 20th century was in the Soviet Union and other East European nations during the tyranny of communism. Many of his most ardent critics were government activists who believe that the only conceivable solution to impending eco-catastrophe is ever more stringent governmental edicts: coercive population stabilization policies, gas rationing, wage and price controls, mandatory recycling, and so on.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
As of May 2009, the Earth's population is estimated to be about 6.77 billion.
80% of 6.77 billion people is 5.416 billion people.
Personally I would not like to trust my luck that I wouldn’t be part of that 80%.
For a famine to starve to death 5.416 billion people would be unprecedented to say the least.
Not sure if it would solve all the proble ...[text shortened]... dency on oil. So my guess is life wouldn’t be much easier for the survivors of such a disaster.

Read about
"THE WAGER"


http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html

The battle lines now drawn, it was not long before Ehrlich and Simon met for a duel in the sun. The face-off occurred in the pages of Social Science Quarterly, where Simon challenged Ehrlich to put his money where his mouth was. In response to Ehrlich's published claim that "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000" - a proposition Simon regarded as too silly to bother with - Simon countered with "a public offer to stake US$10,000 ... on my belief that the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run."

You could name your own terms: select any raw material you wanted - copper, tin, whatever - and select any date in the future, "any date more than a year away," and Simon would bet that the commodity's price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.

"How about it, doomsayers and catastrophists? First come, first served."

In California, Paul Ehrlich stepped right up - and why not? He'd been repeating the Malthusian argument for years; he was sure that things were running out, that resources were getting scarcer - "nearing depletion," as he'd said - and therefore would have to become more expensive. A public wager would be the chance to demonstrate the shrewdness of his forecasts, draw attention to the catastrophic state of the world situation, and, not least, force this Julian Simon character to eat his words. So he jumped at the chance: "I and my colleagues, John P. Holdren (University of California, Berkeley) and John Harte (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory), jointly accept Simon's astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in."

Ehrlich and his colleagues picked five metals that they thought would undergo big price rises: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then, on paper, they bought $200 worth of each, for a total bet of $1,000, using the prices on September 29, 1980, as an index. They designated September 29, 1990, 10 years hence, as the payoff date. If the inflation-adjusted prices of the various metals rose in the interim, Simon would pay Ehrlich the combined difference; if the prices fell, Ehrlich et alia would pay Simon.

Then they sat back and waited.

Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped through the floor. Chrome, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.88 a decade later.

Which is how it came to pass that in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Now I have found this link that makes me think that global warming ALONE might cause a world famine EVEN completely ignoring the problem of our agriculture‘s economic dependency on oil:

Although I don't entirely dispute the basic idea, there are a few points to consider:
Most people who die of starvation do so due to a shortage of money - not a shortage of food.
There is a massive amount of flexibility in the world food market. The recent increases in world food prices were partly a result of people eating more food - and more costly to produce food than previously. If there is a problem with the production side, prices will rise and people will be forced to go back to cheaper foods, but that does not necessarily mean they will starve.
Producing meat requires large quantities of grain. If shortages begin and we simply cut down on meat production, more grain will be available.
Large quantities of grain (and crop land for sugar cane) are being used as biofuels. These could be converted to food.
Large areas of land (such as in Africa) are not cultivated simply because it is not profitable to do so. If world food prices rise so will the areas under production.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Although I don't entirely dispute the basic idea, there are a few points to consider:
Most people who die of starvation do so due to a shortage of money - not a shortage of food.
There is a massive amount of flexibility in the world food market. The recent increases in world food prices were partly a result of people eating more food - and more costly t ...[text shortened]... se it is not profitable to do so. If world food prices rise so will the areas under production.

I like to believe what you say is true but I think it is a bit too optimistic:

Surely there must be a dangerous limit to the flexibility of the world food market?
What if even all the cheapest foods came too expensive because of oil shortages causing a massive drop in production of even these cheapest foods? (this is what I am really worried about)
Even the production of the cheapest grains etc is currently very dependent on the use of oil.

Wonder behind this are there 2 questions?

1 Ignoring resources , At what point are there too many people?
Say a thousand years ago, there were a thousand times more people then when we started.
Where is this 'natural' limit? There seems to be a stigma in some peoples minds about this.


2 How can we provide for our population with current resources?
I read a WHO statistics that it would be possible to farm for 60 billion people with current land (source wiki . 🙂 ) .
Think it's more we lack technologies in other areas. As Andrew said farming relys on burning fuels. If everyone wants a house, car, to. -Why more efficient fuel use and generation is vital!

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
I like to believe what you say is true but I think it is a bit too optimistic:

Surely there must be a dangerous limit to the flexibility of the world food market?
What if even all the cheapest foods came too expensive because of oil shortages causing a massive drop in production of even these cheapest foods? (this is what I am really worried abo ...[text shortened]... )
Even the production of the cheapest grains etc is currently very dependent on the use of oil.

The biggest threats I see are temporary shortages caused by things like drought etc. Many countries stock pile food, but recently they have apparently used up most of those stocks.
As I said, we could dramatically increase our output of grain - and dramatically reduce our consumption too if the price was right.
The US and Europe subsize their farmers which results in them being able to grow food even when the prices are low - this does lead to some amount of over production. Other countries do not subsidize and these countries often have the potential to grow much more food if the price goes up. The other factor is the first world citizens eat far more food per capita than most of the rest of the world. If there was a food shortage one would hope that they could give up some of that consumption, but in reality the result would probably be the poorest people going without (starvation), while the rich continue to live in luxury. But that is nothing new - its happening now.
In Zambia the government has terrible agricultural policies and the price of the staple food (maize) tends to fluctuate quite dramatically during the year and from year to year. The result is that at some points in time there are people starving because they cant afford it, and at other times the price is so low that the farmers do not think it worth their while to grow more.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The biggest threats I see are temporary shortages caused by things like drought etc. Many countries stock pile food, but recently they have apparently used up most of those stocks.
As I said, we could dramatically increase our output of grain - and dramatically reduce our consumption too if the price was right.
The US and Europe subsize their farmers wh ...[text shortened]... other times the price is so low that the farmers do not think it worth their while to grow more.

…As I said, we could dramatically increase our output of grain
..… (my emphasis)

Even without oil or severe shortage of oil? -this is the situation I fear -even in Britain! (I don’t think even most of as Brits appreciate just how dangerously oil-dependent out food production is in our own country -we have become complacent because most of us have never seen food shortages in our lifetimes and have never experienced real hunger)

Alto note that virtually all of the land that is both suitable for agriculture and can be readily be converted for in the world is already being used for agriculture so there is very little capacity for increasing food production by just simply putting more land into production.

There must be a definite practical limit to how much food we can get out of the land and that is without oil shortages! If we then have severe oil shortages then we would really be in trouble if we did nothing to adapt to that.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Even without oil or severe shortage of oil? -this is the situation I fear -even in Britain! (I don’t think even most of as Brits appreciate just how dangerously oil-dependent out food production is in our own country -we have become complacent because most of us have never seen food shortages in our lifetimes and have never experienced real hunger)

I thought the thread was about global warming not oil. Do you predict a sudden end to oil supplies?

There are alternatives to fertilizer but they generally do not produce as much for the same price or land area.

Alto note that virtually all of the land that is both suitable for agriculture and can be readily be converted for in the world is already being used for agriculture so there is very little capacity for increasing food production by just simply putting more land into production.
That is simply not true. I come from Zambia and can assure you that most of Zambia is open bush and could be used for crops and a lot would be if the price was right. If pushed we could even convert our large national parks into cropland but I doubt that would be necessary as we have plenty of unused land outside the national parks.
Recent shortages have in fact lead to some rich countries buying up large areas of unused land as a protection against future shortages.

There must be a definite practical limit to how much food we can get out of the land and that is without oil shortages! If we then have severe oil shortages then we would really be in trouble if we did nothing to adapt to that.
Who says we would do nothing to adapt? The real question is how quickly we can adapt compared to how quickly the oil runs out. When the oil price climbed over US$100 we saw a sudden boom in alternative power industries. If the price of fertilizer goes up we will see a boom in organic farming methods. Fertilizer is currently heavily subsidized in most places because that is one of the easiest ways to subsidize farming and be sure that the subsidy is going into actual farming.

According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer
Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas (currently 5% of global consumption).
So suppose our supplies of natural gas drop by 50%, will we reduce our fertilizer production, or will we cut down else were?

Whatever happens the price of food would have to be subsidized more (than it already is), or some people would starve. But it would be mostly a money thing not a lack of resources thing. We can produce enough food for the world if the price is right, whether the world is able to buy it, is another matter entirely.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I thought the thread was about global warming not oil. Do you predict a sudden end to oil supplies?

There are alternatives to fertilizer but they generally do not produce as much for the same price or land area.

[b]Alto note that virtually all of the land that is both suitable for agriculture and can be readily be converted for in the world is alrea ...[text shortened]... he world if the price is right, whether the world is able to buy it, is another matter entirely.

…Do you predict a sudden end to oil supplies?
..…[/b]

Of course not. Rather a gradual but disastrous (if we haven’t adapted sufficiently) decline in production.

….I come from Zambia and can assure you that most of Zambia is open bush and could be used for crops and a lot would be if the price was right.
...…

Zambia may be one of the exception:

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/food_supply/food.htm

“…Nearly all of the world's productive land is already exploited. Most of the unexploited land is either too steep, too wet, too dry or too cold for agriculture….”

I can find other links that confirm this.

….Who says we would do nothing to adapt?
…

Nobody -I didn’t mean that from that comment.

…. The real question is how quickly we can adapt compared to how quickly the oil runs out. …

Agreed 🙂 -and how quickly WILL we be persuaded to adapt? -it sometimes seems to me very hard to convince some people of the urgency of the situation.

…
So suppose our supplies of natural gas drop by 50%, will we reduce our fertilizer production, or will we cut down else were?
…

I am not sure but I would guess a bit of both. I am not sure but I would guess that a 50% cut wouldn’t be nearly enough to produce an unmanageable disaster. Personally I fear what would happen when our supplies of natural gas drop by 99% and our oil by 90%