Does Less Energy Mean More Farmers?

Among the cadre of folks who think about food systems and sustainability in the U.S., there


As these authors point out, not only is the absolute number very large compared to today, but given the age of the current crop of farmers it implies that a rapid education of youth will be required to keep bread on the table. Given the importance of this topic, I feel that more diverse and sophisticated forms of analyses are needed. Just as we use multiple lines of evidence to understand the evolution of life, oil depletion, and climate change, we need to look for confirmation from many angles. Furthermore, better knowledge potentially gets us closer to grasping the scale and rate of change required to cope with the problem in the same way that depletion rates in existing fields and net exports analyses do in the oil situation, or the timing and consequences of melting ice sheets and release of methane from warming permafrost do in the climate system.

Perhaps we can validate or refute this scenario by further use of the comparative method. The comparative method is what Heinberg and Astyx used in their analyses