Subject: Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion People
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:08:31 -0700
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...
Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion People
, (continued)