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Voting for the lesser of two evils
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: away from class
Sep 04, 2002, 16:27
I chose 1 billion because my reading on the subject seems to constantly throw up "between half a billion and two billion" as a sustainable number in a post-petroleum world.

You describe this as "catastrophist" and go on to cite claims of 10-25 billion as a sustainable population. Just as i half-acknowledge the label "catastrophist", i'd like you to try on "cornucopian" for size.

You talk about "[organising] production... in a different way". Are you suggesting that we empty the cities and everyone goes and grows their own food? Or are you suggesting that population centres of millions of people can be supported by a rural population wiithout the use of fossil fuels?

I simply cannot envision how either can be achieved successfully. I am more than willing to be enlightened; but there's already a developing shortage of arable land on the planet. This has its root in many factors; chief amongst them being intensive farming - though climate change may well play a greater role in that as time passes. With the loss of nitrogen-rich fertiliser (a fossil-fuel product) and pesticides (largely speaking, fossil-fuel products) the arable land we do have will see significant yield losses (the actual levels of loss are being fiercely debated on a mailing-list i'm on at the moment; so i won't presume to speculate just how much).

The global "population boom" (a loaded phrase, but still a good one) of the 20th century can be blamed on industrial farming methods more than any other single cause. This methodology cannot exist without the input of vast quantities of concentrated energy and petrochemicals. I have yet to read any model of sustainability for 6 billion people that can (a) provide a replacement for fossil fuels in the production process, and (b) find a replacement in the distribution process.

I'd be interested in reading anything that contradicts that view however. So do point me in the right direction.
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