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Can we keep up with the demand?
Leslierussell4134
Posts: 376 Member
in Debate Club
Happy Friday all! 
In your opinion, after reading, https://moneyweek.com/are-we-running-out-of-food/, do you believe the minds of our time will be able to keep up with the demand of the growing world population? Depending on which article you read, the estimated population in 2050 will be between 9.1 and 9.8 billion. Many like to claim the world will run out of natural resources like trace elements, water, food, clean air to breath, etc. Will science continue to innovate, and, in time to accommodate?
The article mentions, in our past, man has changed habits and has always risen to the occasion when projections were made of "dooms day" timelines. Is this the attitude we should continue? Will there always be another way? Will the vast majority of the world need to chnage its ways to prolong human existence on Earth? Or will we exhaust our means and finally succumb to the greed for more, bigger and better? I love to get your thoughts.
In your opinion, after reading, https://moneyweek.com/are-we-running-out-of-food/, do you believe the minds of our time will be able to keep up with the demand of the growing world population? Depending on which article you read, the estimated population in 2050 will be between 9.1 and 9.8 billion. Many like to claim the world will run out of natural resources like trace elements, water, food, clean air to breath, etc. Will science continue to innovate, and, in time to accommodate?
The article mentions, in our past, man has changed habits and has always risen to the occasion when projections were made of "dooms day" timelines. Is this the attitude we should continue? Will there always be another way? Will the vast majority of the world need to chnage its ways to prolong human existence on Earth? Or will we exhaust our means and finally succumb to the greed for more, bigger and better? I love to get your thoughts.
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Replies
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I think as a world we have plenty of time on our hands to keep up with the demands. Science, the demands themselves, and cost controls have always helped us find ways to produce more with less. Conservation of resources will continue to develop more and more in established countries.
I think really the largest problems come from developing nations. Combined with greed, often the recipe for disaster in environmental damage and failing to protect resources. It's a slippery slope when a country or region is still fighting for financial stability, at which point they will do whatever needed to survive.3 -
There's a big push to take everything to Mars. The problem with that...same dodo's who messed everything up down here will mess Mars up, too. What are they going to do with the garbage. Bury it or let it drift out into space. What about wastewater treatment systems and water purification. We'll be taking our problems with us everywhere we go including disease and all of our plastic multi-cr@p.
We are bent on survival.3 -
You can find Doomsday in any magazine or newspaper.
I'll preface my remarks by saying I'm 64, so my horse in this race is admittedly ready to go out to pasture, so to speak.
With that said, unless there is some kind of mass procreation slowdown, eventually the numbers will outweigh the resources. Will that happen before global warming kills off most of us anyway? Or before we blow ourselves up with our splitting the atom technology? Or before some super-virus manages to out mutate our ability to stop it? All of the above? My money is on all-the-above (plus your lack of food hypothesis.)
Regardless, there's plenty to worry about if you want to worry. I could fall out of bed.
The planet is going to shake humans off one day - one way or the other, humans will have some mass-destruction event - or several. The planet will rebuild, and things will start over.6 -
How do you guys feel about the end of the article, where the idea of a meat tax comes into play? Should we tax certain foods more, depending on the amount of resources it takes to product?0
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A "meat tax" would more than likely be simplistic and counterproductive, especially since many of those same products are subsidized in certain ways, including water access, price supports, etc
There are a number of ways agriculture can respond to increasing needs, including vertical or indoor factory farming (which we had another thread on here recently), improving supply chains, reducing waste, etc. Waste reduction alone would improve our utilization immensely.1 -
Tax meat? Tax money is usually just wasted.3
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It bothers me that one of the solutions is always, "let's tax it". That solves nothing lol. Geez. No thanks, government does not need more of our money.
We produce plenty of food, but are not good enough at distributing it. This will balance its self out as we continually move away from petrol and on to more efficient electrical (and digital!) supply chains. Along with continually modernizing farming practices and implementing new methods of GMO.
The real "problem" is the growing countries who do not yet have the infrastructure to distribute food.6 -
Geocitiesuser wrote: »It bothers me that one of the solutions is always, "let's tax it". That solves nothing lol. Geez. No thanks, government does not need more of our money.
We produce plenty of food, but are not good enough at distributing it. This will balance its self out as we continually move away from petrol and on to more efficient electrical (and digital!) supply chains. Along with continually modernizing farming practices and implementing new methods of GMO.
The real "problem" is the growing countries who do not yet have the infrastructure to distribute food.
Yes, you said it, distribution will definitely improve with the ulitization of renewable energy sources0 -
L1zardQueen wrote: »Tax meat? Tax money is usually just wasted.
I think the goal of this specific tax would be to drive up the price of meat as a whole, decreasing demand. Most people in support of this, of course, do care where the money would go, but at the same time don't care. All that matters to them is "pricing out" many consumers and the current demand. So maybe people don't eat meat and meat products as often. Some might, others may think twice.0 -
Not at all. These doomsday predictions have about as much logical basis today as they did 10,000 years ago. Behavior does not trend linear. We currently produce more than enough food to supply the entire world and could fit the world's population in Australia with ~.2 acres. It's more of an issue of logistics and storage.
We need to move away from taxation. Paying an unaccountable body an ever increasing amount of money comes close to the definition of insanity.6 -
Not at all. These doomsday predictions have about as much logical basis today as they did 10,000 years ago. Behavior does not trend linear. We currently produce more than enough food to supply the entire world and could fit the world's population in Australia with ~.2 acres. It's more of an issue of logistics and storage.
We need to move away from taxation. Paying an unaccountable body an ever increasing amount of money comes close to the definition of insanity.
How did you come to the ".2 acres" conclusion? Just curious? I'm not sure they could physical fit, but I'm fully convinced 6.8 billions people could not live in that area.0 -
The statement used to be that you could house the Earth's population in a land mass the size of Texas. Australia just makes for a better example highlighting just how vast the world is and how inefficient our lives are currently. If needed we would adapt very quickly.
Australia ~1,900,800,000 acres
.2 parcels ~9,504,000,000
Have to consider a deal of fudge factor here as you will have variances in dwellings & occupants. Note this does not take into factor z-axis, so high rises, multi-story buildings.
Why are you "fully convinced"? What data are you using to base this on?0 -
Well, if we all tried to live in/on .2 acres per person and all of us on one continent the size of Australia - we'd have a higher murder rate, so that would help the population numbers.
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They say that everyone in the world could fit within the State of Texas. Don't mess with Texas. Then all of our ex's really would live in Texas, now that would be a mess.2
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The statement used to be that you could house the Earth's population in a land mass the size of Texas. Australia just makes for a better example highlighting just how vast the world is and how inefficient our lives are currently. If needed we would adapt very quickly.
Australia ~1,900,800,000 acres
.2 parcels ~9,504,000,000
Have to consider a deal of fudge factor here as you will have variances in dwellings & occupants. Note this does not take into factor z-axis, so high rises, multi-story buildings.
Why are you "fully convinced"? What data are you using to base this on?
Texas I can see, "0.2 acres," would be impossible, evem with high rises, and that statement threw me off.
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The world provides about 2400 calories per day per human on the face of the planet. That is an increase from what the world provided 50 years ago when the population was smaller, and 100 years ago when the population was much smaller.
With a track record like that, I think planet can feed all of us quite nicely.3 -
Leslierussell4134 wrote: »How do you guys feel about the end of the article, where the idea of a meat tax comes into play? Should we tax certain foods more, depending on the amount of resources it takes to product?
There's no need to let government decide what we eat. Some societies agree with that. Some don't. I figure Germany would enthusiastically tax all foods associated with ill health. EU won't let them. I figure the U.S. wouldn't.0 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »The world provides about 2400 calories per day per human on the face of the planet. That is an increase from what the world provided 50 years ago when the population was smaller, and 100 years ago when the population was much smaller.
With a track record like that, I think planet can feed all of us quite nicely.
https://www.vox.com/2014/8/21/6053187/cropland-map-food-fuel-animal-feed
According to this article, only 55% of food grown in the world is eaten by humans. And, it takes about 100 calories of grain to produce just 12 calories of chicken or 3 calories worth of beef, for instance.
I believe in efficiencies to solve many of my own problems and maybe if we thought this way about our eating habits, we could preserve natural resources and enjoy more of the world's land for pleasures greater than the farming of animals.
Just curious if your calorie estimate of 2400 per persome came from food "grown in the world?" Or food "actually available" for consumption?0 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Leslierussell4134 wrote: »How do you guys feel about the end of the article, where the idea of a meat tax comes into play? Should we tax certain foods more, depending on the amount of resources it takes to product?
There's no need to let government decide what we eat. Some societies agree with that. Some don't. I figure Germany would enthusiastically tax all foods associated with ill health. EU won't let them. I figure the U.S. wouldn't.
As an American, I stand strong by my freedoms, and would never support any legislation that governed my choice of diet, or the diet of my neighbor.
I do, however support a free market and that isn't possible when government taxes are used to subsidize dairy and meat, making them cheaper and more affordable to consumers. The only crops subsidized are those going as feed to raise meat. So, there is already a tax on meat, an involuntary and hidden tax.
Why not remove it, stick it on the front end of meat and dairy products and let people choose fair and square what they would like to purchase.
It is proven that meat and dairy are not required for life, it is a luxury item and should and actually DOES cost more to produce.0 -
Interesting perspective on the subject. Much more inclusive of influential variables on population:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI
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Interesting perspective on the subject. Much more inclusive of influential variables on population:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI
Thank you for sharing, this was great.0 -
The statement used to be that you could house the Earth's population in a land mass the size of Texas. Australia just makes for a better example highlighting just how vast the world is and how inefficient our lives are currently. If needed we would adapt very quickly.
Australia ~1,900,800,000 acres
.2 parcels ~9,504,000,000
Have to consider a deal of fudge factor here as you will have variances in dwellings & occupants. Note this does not take into factor z-axis, so high rises, multi-story buildings.
Why are you "fully convinced"? What data are you using to base this on?
I disagree that increasing population can be managed with just building more. Every single *comprehensive* story I've heard about flooding in Japan, Texas, and Louisiana talks about how overbuilding contributed to storm damage.
We're just not building intelligently on our coasts and in or near flood plains, and there's no simple solution to stupidity, corruption, and greed.
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/06/tide-high-wading-through-hurricane-harveys-damage-audio/
...We investigated by wading through the damage left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. It turns out that developers built thousands of homes inside a reservoir – a 50-square- mile area that’s not just flood prone; it’s designed to flood. Many residents didn’t know this because there’s no law requiring anyone to tell them. So after Harvey, they were left with destroyed homes and little recourse.
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/09/563016223/exploring-why-hurricane-harvey-caused-houstons-worst-fooding
...In the apartment he's living in now, he shows me a map of the area from the 1970s. To the west it's prairie and rice fields, the kind of land that soaks up rain. In a current map, it's now paved — houses, shopping malls, roads. That pushes more water into Houston.
Years ago, there was talk of building a third reservoir. "They did not build the third reservoir, which was so badly needed. They built houses," says Hyde. "Houses get tax money and reservoirs don't."
At Harvey's peak, the reservoirs couldn't handle the water. Engineers opened spillways and water shot downstream toward the city through concrete-lined bayous. Runoff from paved roads and neighborhoods ran into the bayous as well.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/572721503/louisiana-says-thousands-should-move-from-vulnerable-coast-but-cant-pay-them
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/610945127/levees-make-mississippi-river-floods-worse-but-we-keep-building-them
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kshama2001 wrote: »The statement used to be that you could house the Earth's population in a land mass the size of Texas. Australia just makes for a better example highlighting just how vast the world is and how inefficient our lives are currently. If needed we would adapt very quickly.
Australia ~1,900,800,000 acres
.2 parcels ~9,504,000,000
Have to consider a deal of fudge factor here as you will have variances in dwellings & occupants. Note this does not take into factor z-axis, so high rises, multi-story buildings.
Why are you "fully convinced"? What data are you using to base this on?
I disagree that increasing population can be managed with just building more. Every single *comprehensive* story I've heard about flooding in Japan, Texas, and Louisiana talks about how overbuilding contributed to storm damage.
We're just not building intelligently on our coasts and in or near flood plains, and there's no simple solution to stupidity, corruption, and greed.
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/06/tide-high-wading-through-hurricane-harveys-damage-audio/
...We investigated by wading through the damage left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. It turns out that developers built thousands of homes inside a reservoir – a 50-square- mile area that’s not just flood prone; it’s designed to flood. Many residents didn’t know this because there’s no law requiring anyone to tell them. So after Harvey, they were left with destroyed homes and little recourse.
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/09/563016223/exploring-why-hurricane-harvey-caused-houstons-worst-fooding
...In the apartment he's living in now, he shows me a map of the area from the 1970s. To the west it's prairie and rice fields, the kind of land that soaks up rain. In a current map, it's now paved — houses, shopping malls, roads. That pushes more water into Houston.
Years ago, there was talk of building a third reservoir. "They did not build the third reservoir, which was so badly needed. They built houses," says Hyde. "Houses get tax money and reservoirs don't."
At Harvey's peak, the reservoirs couldn't handle the water. Engineers opened spillways and water shot downstream toward the city through concrete-lined bayous. Runoff from paved roads and neighborhoods ran into the bayous as well.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/04/572721503/louisiana-says-thousands-should-move-from-vulnerable-coast-but-cant-pay-them
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/21/610945127/levees-make-mississippi-river-floods-worse-but-we-keep-building-them
You disagree with a strawman you created?
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