global food supply fizzling out

[undergroundpanther]

Yes we have no bananas..

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33268

[brokensymmetry]

1. Interesting trends. Add in climate change...

and the damage to the fisheries...and fertilier/transportation
prices...and you come to some interesting possibilities.

And no one is even thinking about the implications for
the world or the U.S.

Thanks for posting this, Undergroundpanther.

[oscar111]

2. UN's Food and Agri.. FAO.. may still put out Cal's/person/yr globally

calories per person per yr.

It did put out the stat, last i looked.. for nations and for the whole world.

great stat to know.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Yerp. And I had just posted something on TUNA being in danger ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=54443&mesg_id=54443

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Soylent Green is made of those who dispute cheap labor laws.

[Deja Q]

12. It wouldn't sell... 2 reasons.

1. Remember "the new Coke"? They quickly reverted to the old formula. Not the old old one because that contained cocaine and by 1985 cocaine was illegal...

2. The taste of soylent green varies from person to person. People want their consistency, dammit! :D

[acmejack]

5. We are so hosed....

People require between 900,000 - 1,000,000 calories per year to thrive (http://environmentalrisk.cornell.edu/Sustainability/SkinCat.pdf & http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/fi1.html) we aren't going to be able to do it for very long, especially with peak oil looking us in the face.

[Deja Q]

13. Peak oil won't be an issue...

once you get rid of billions of people who require oil for everything to do in their lives.

Things will still run normally. The stressors gone; humanity will continue - just this time without Nintendo, I should think...

Of course, some people will have to clear away billions of bodies at some point.

But don't expect nukes or anything else that destroys Earth in the process. Nobody is that insane. (and it needn't be biological either, what culls back our population...)

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Well, there's an end to population growth, anyway.

More people than food = obvious overpopulation. Yet this article rather seems to miss that obvious point, and concentrates on the need to find ways of allowing the population to CONTINUE to increase beyond the planet's already severely strained carrying capacity (actual carrying capacity, in sustanable terms, is roughly equal to a human population of around 2 billion).

From a pragmatic standpoint, this is actually a good thing. I don't see that this is something that needs to be 'fixed'; finding ways around the apparently inherent limits of food production and carrying capacity leads to more rapid environmental destruction and wastage of non-renewable resources, thus merely hastening inevitable collapse. (But then, there's no limit to human shortsightedness and hubris...)

[Lorien]

8. The seabirds have figured it out

in the last few years many species of sea birds haven't produced a single chick in populations of over 100,000. The reason? Severe food shortages (some small fish species near extinction). Amazing that a species of bird knows better than to breed when there's not enough resources to sustain itself, yet humanity still remains intentionally ignorant as we speed toward our own extinction.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. The flooding coastline and loss of arable land and drinkable water will

thin us out, I am sure. :(

[karlrschneider]

7. Well, we can eat summa that ethanol corn I guess...

:eyes:

[Coventina]

10. Yet are we (as a species) going to do anything about it?

No.

We're too busy squabbling amongst ourselves, over stupid petty stuff.

Let the apocalypse come, we deserve it.

[Deja Q]

11. You mean the "bottom line".

Besides, at 6 billion people on this planet, America should be praised for its comparatively small population.

Other countries are in the billions - holy shit!! China alone has well over 1.5 bil and in the past they've tried forceful methods to get their populace from breeding. It didn't work...

So what's working for freedom-loving Americans that isn't for the people in these fascist-ran countries?

Freedom vs fascism, hmm... :think: Maybe the Chinese kept going at it because their government said "no". Or, forgive me, they're not educated as we are regarding population and ecology. The Chinese government does impose limits on what their people know, we've all read about incidents because of that.

(and I don't mean "abortion" either, so don't bother perverting my comments into a lame abortion thread, pro or con.)

[SpiralHawk]

14. Act locallly. Act now. Consider CSA

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers a way for every human being to be directly involved in the care and healing of the earth, while also ensuring a supply of clean, healthy food for their families and their neighbors.

http://www.chiron-communications.com/farms.html