LLCF, maybe OT here, but in a way, we are all hoping that the hordes eventually really dig it when it comes to gold... <pun intended>
Anyway, my friend is on vacation, and i cant find the article... Essentially, just as the link i posted to you previously, it really depends on your starting assumptions for growth. My post was directed at the parabolic population growth, and parabolic it isnt. Still, a 50% increase in 43 years is quite drastic. Predictions though, as the saying goes, are especially hard to make especially when they involve the future... 50% is not sustainable in my view, so at one point it will not be sustained... like all other things. There is some wiggle room though, as 1. it depends on where the growth happens, and 2. how much resources the new growth uses... Population density is much more sustainable if it is Tokyo style or Hong Kong style, not LA or Phoenix style. The North Am suburbian model is about the worst you can think of for resource use, starting with the useless lawn and the fact that invariably the expansion happens on "good" land.
My personal proposed solution for population increases is to give a flat panel LCD TV to every household in countries where growth is above sustainable levels, free of charge. It would provide investment opportunities as well for the insiders, of which i would like to be one...
One thing i had forgotten to mention here with food. Although climate plays perhaps the biggest part in it, the part we cant control anyway, what must be looked at is the calorific density per unit of land per person. On that i remember reading that China`s number were very high, due mostly to how intensive the land was farmed (meaning labour was cheap). Midwest Canada and USA sounds good a priori, but the input needed, the yield, and the climate make it questionable as to it being sustainable. I agree with you that it is a fragile balance.
step1 |
