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Complex Systems Theorists Predict We're About One Year From Global Food Riots
pigrabbitbear writes with conjecture on what triggers global unrest. Quoting the article: "In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest."
No man is more than three square meals away from revolution.
That the contemporary "Zombie" as portrayed in movies, at the receiving end of a chainsaw or shotgun, looks and acts very much like a hungry person would?
Sometimes I wonder if that's just a co-incidence or by design... After all, there's not much difference between a starving person calling out "Brains" and "Grains" is there?
And when I do wonder that, I really, really hope it's by co-incidence.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
While there have been several suggested origins of the food price increases, we find the dominant ones to be investor speculation and ethanol production.
I'm more inclined to believe the latter, because there was never a shortage of grain - just high prices. The US wasted millions of tons of grain making ethanol in a misguided attempt to not burn fossil fuel.
The next time you're driving to work, take a glance to your left.
That 30' wide median strip? You know, the one they pay some public works teams to spend an entire week mowing several times a season? Yeah. Fully exposed to sunlight, easy access, on a major transportation route.
Now, granted, you're not going to want to grow food veggies in the median of a major interstate? Too much toxins from the exhaust and worse. But now that we've got the idea in your heads, take a look at the medians in your local town. Definitely not as much traffic, but sometimes just as wide, covered in very thirsty, very costly grass and/or other landscape plants, and 100% under-utilized.
So. When it looks like the global food riots are going to start, show up at your local council/zoning board and say, "Here's what's going on, here's what we're going to do about it. We will be growing food. We will take care of all maintenance and upkeep, and save the town (insert 5-6 figure amount) of dollars per year. If you interfere, we will sue you into oblivion. If you try to arrest us, we'll keep coming in until we're all incarcerated. Then YOU will have to pay for feeding us."
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I hear that argued by the religious right anytime the subject of overpopulation comes up
Yay, political/religious generalizations straight off the bat. Clearly, this post is going to be quality.
We have a planet with a comfortable capacity of 5 billion
Source? Or did you just pull a convenient number out of your backside? WHO estimates of human population levelling (~10 billion) place it somewhere below the median range of the estimated carrying capacity of the earth.
I put the people who downplay the potential for mass starvation in the same category as people who deny climate change. They're both whistling past the graveyard so they don't have to make any sacrifices in terms of changing their lifestyle.
Probably because there's no need to change their lifestyle. There is not a finite amount of wealth; the fact that western nations are wealthy does not necessitate that undeveloped nations be kept so. As an example, look at Malawi; within five years, with a fairly simple improvement in the form of a fertiliser subsidy, Malawi went from famine to being a food exporter. The same thing happened in India with the Green Revolution. Now imagine if they applied more modern techniques, like widespread irrigation, or high-yield strains of grain.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
In fact, every major famine in the 20th Century was caused NOT by major crop failures, but by deliberate political policy or the effects of war.
Famous examples of this include the forced collectivization of farms in the Ukraine between 1928 and 1933, the time of the warlords in China during the 1920's and 1930's when fighting disrupted food supply, the effects of the the invasion of China by Japan (which also disrupted food supply), the "Great Leap Forward" in China that seriously affected food production, and the political policies of dictators in Africa during the second half of the 20th Century.
My grandfather's family left England during the Great Depression, because they were so poor, they could barely afford bread and dripping, if that (dripping, I was told, was a bit of a treat). They ended up swapping a life of borderline starvation for what amounted to indentured servitude on a farm in the middle of outback Australia, but at least they got to eat. My old man nonetheless spoke of killing feral rabbits because that was the only meat they could afford.
My other grandfather was quite literally enslaved by the Allies for two years after WW2, labouring on a wheat farm, because there were massive food shortages after the Russians had done burning, looting and raping Germany.
My grandmother was billeted to a family in Switzerland during the war because her family wouldn't afford to feed her (war apparently isn't good for kids either).
So yeah, hunger is certainly within living memory for most of our families. Thank God that Western civilization has the basics right, and that we're all obese two short generations later.
It is possible now, in fact the world creates enough Calories to feed the current population--starvation is a distribution problem. Thanks to Norman Borlaug, we now have corn that creates Vitamin A and 100% of your essential amino acids, and that was years ago. A worldwide team of crop experts has been crossing rice strains to make a type that is highly suited for a hydroponics environment as a way of dealing with the issue of available cropland in Asia. Overall, every staple grain has seen a trend in the last two decades of higher-yield and less maintenance.
You can focus on hype, people waving predictions in your face about potential worst-case scenarios, but those who study "The World Food Problem" know there's equal parts messages of caution and hope.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Current industrial farming practices use 10 calories of energy (mostly from petrochemicals) to produce 1 calorie of food.
Contemporary farming techniques are heavily dependent on petrochemicals to produce fertilizer.
Contemporary farming techniques deplete topsoil faster than it will naturally replenish.
That said, there're a lot of dandelions and wild garlic in most yards (and more acreage in lawns in the U.S. than any single crop).
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You're trying to be funny but you were closer to the truth than you realized. I've been working on the concept of a food tower. Essentially it's a skeletal structure that would use either hydroponics or container plants or both. Ironically the plan was for a 20'X20", as in 400sgft, footprint so it'd fit in the space of a two car garage or a normal backyard. It would be a two to three story open structure made of rebar or pipe with rows of hydroponic pipe or plant containers space 32" apart vertically. Counting the ground row it would give you ten rows each 160' long or 1600' linear feet in a 20X20 space. You can also create rows across the top and by staggering the planting double the length by having inside and outside rows. Including the double rows and figuring a 120' of rows across the top you get a total of 3320'. That's just short of a quarter acre of growing space in a 20X20 area. You just need a single pump and it gravity feeds from there. If you live in an area with moderate weather you should be able to provide most of your food for a family of four in the space of a garage. Add in a 20X20 greenhouse for cooler weather and to start seedlings and you'd be in good shape for year round fresh food. It's our whole approach to food that needs to change. Check out this video for a prime example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfScfxkmWw4&feature=related They are growing a million pounds of food on three acres. I did the math before I saw any of the articles and videos and I'd say it could be done on an acre. 3 to 5 acre farms could feed a 1,000 people each including most of their meat except for beef, cattle require lots of grass. A 15 to 20 acre could provide all the chicken, pork and fish as well as shrimp for a 1000 people with even some cattle and sheep. I'm talking free range field raised not factory. All the food would be organic and pesticide free. Most of the water is recycled in this type of farm and they produce their own mulch so it's a semi closed organic system. We need to rethink how food is producedto survive the next 100 years.
You forgot to mention that the growth rate is slowing, particularly as two certain countries (admittedly, slowly) uplift themselves, with the most common studies expecting a plateau to begin appearing around 10-11 billion.
No it doesnt help that 1/3 of american corn is diverted to ethanol (but thats another issue).
But the problem (as has been stated millions of times) isnt food production, its food distribution.
I love this page: http://flowingdata.com/2011/07/27/if-the-world-lived-in-a-single-city/
Houston is pretty spread out, ~3700 people per sq mile. that's ~5.7 people per acre.
Living in cities amplifies the food thing cause people aren't growing their own, and so are dependent on a few people to supply them. Thats called civilization and specialization and a buncha other things. But even so, it still comes down to distrubution. Ever work in a grocery? You see how much stuff we throw away due to rules about experiation and what not in a typical grocery store?
Again. Not a quantity problem, its a distribution problem.
So the doom and gloom? Not warranted.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.