permaculture

[Stephen Sherman <spsherm@msn.com>]

On 11/22/2012 4:41 PM, paul wheaton wrote:
> <snip> In the meantime, a study has been completed that shows that 
> Sepp Holzer's techniques will feed 21 billion people without 
> irrigation or fertilizer. 

Not to diminish Sepp's work, but I think it is overly simplistic to 
extrapolate from current conditions and calculate something like this.

It isn't that I doubt the math, or that his methods are a great deal 
better than current practices. Rather I am concerned that with a 
tripling of the human population, there will be other effects on the 
environment which invalidate these calculations. How much cropland would 
be converted to urban or suburban use? How many other resources or 
conditions will be altered by the human population increase in ways 
which hurt the ability to produce food, regardless of the methods.

Keep in mind, nature is a negative feedback system. When something moves 
to excess (such as human population) "things" arise to reverse that 
excess. Just because we can't foresee all these "things" does not mean 
they aren't or won't be happening...