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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion - cont.

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  • From: Alia Tsang <alia@dietrick.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion - cont.
  • Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:38:29 -0800

On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Toby Hemenway
<toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:

> ...I could go on with a dozen more things that those new billions will
> demand--cars, roads, health care, lighting, rubber, plastic--but I hope you
> see that food is just the beginning, the technological obstacle to be
> gotten out of the way so that we can keep on with growth, growth, growth.
> At some point, growth ends, and we can choose to end it consciously, or,
> like countless other species, nature will end it for us, with misery for
> billions.. As Wes Jackson says, at some point we need to grow up.
>
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
>
>
>
Not to mention the massive, massive amounts of waste from the production
and consumption of all these things. And the fact that our best farmland is
getting bought up for development. Can we feed these 9 or 21 billion people
just using the marginal land no one currently wants to live or farm on?
Yes, "population control" has pretty sinister connotations, but it doesn't
have to be carried out like the Chinese one child policy (which they are
incidentally talking about changing because they need more low wage
workers). I think we, as a global community, need to stop looking at the 9+
billion as an inevitability we have to prepare for and start looking at how
to increase the quality of life for the 7 billion already here. We need a
movement to change the attitude that it's our god-given right to reproduce
as much as we feel like, and education and support for women in areas that
have high mother and child mortality rates so women can better plan when
they're going to have children and better take care of the ones they have.

But, maybe we're on the verge of a "Children of Men" scenario from all the
BPA and other endocrine disruptors we're pouring into our food and water
supply and won't have to deal with it after all.

Alia




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