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We Are Exceeding Earth’s Carrying Capacity
IN HIS ARTICLE, “The Earth’s Carrying Capacity for Human Life is Not Fixed,” Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based energy and environment think tank, seeks to enlist readers in his optimistic vision of the future. It’s a future in which there are many more people on the planet and each enjoys a high standard of living, while environmental impacts are reduced. It’s a cheery vision.
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If only it were plausible.
Nordhaus’s argument hinges on dismissing the longstanding biological concept of “carrying capacity” — the number of organisms an environment can support without becoming degraded. “Applied to ecology, the concept [of carrying capacity] is problematic,” Nordhaus writes, arguing in a nutshell that the planet’s ability to support human civilization can be, one presumes, infinitely tweaked through a combination of social and physical engineering.
Few actual ecologists, however, would agree. Indeed, the concept of carrying capacity is useful in instance after instance — including modeling the population dynamics of nonhuman species, and in gauging the health of virtually any ecosystem, be it ocean, river, prairie, desert, or forest. While exact population numbers are sometimes difficult to predict on the basis of the carrying capacity concept, it is nevertheless clear that, wherever habitat is degraded, creatures suffer and their numbers decline.
The controversy deepens in applying the carrying capacity concept to humans. Nordhaus seems to think we are exceptions to the rules. Still, as archaeologists have affirmed, many past human societies consumed resources or polluted environments to the point of collapse. Granted, societies have failed for other reasons as well, including invasion, over-extension of empire, or natural climate change. Yet in cases where societies depleted forests, fisheries, freshwater, or topsoil, the consequences were dire.
But that was then. The core of Nordhaus’ case is that we are now living in a magical society that is immune to the ecological law of gravity. Yes, it is beyond dispute that the modern industrial world has been able to temporarily expand Earth’s carrying capacity for our species. As Nordhaus points out, population has grown dramatically (from less than a billion in 1800 to 7.6 billion today), and so has per capita consumption. No previous society was able to support so many people at such a high level of amenity. If we’ve managed to stretch carrying capacity this much already, why can’t we do so ad infinitum?
To answer the question, it’s first important to understand the basis of our success so far. Science and technology usually glean most of the credit, and they deserve their share. But sheer energy — the bulk of it from fossil fuels — has been at least as important a factor.
With lots of cheap energy, we were able to extract raw materials faster and in greater quantities, transport them further, and transform them through industrial processes into a breathtaking array of goods — including fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics, all of which tended to reduce human death rates.
But there was still another essential factor in our success: nature itself. Using science, technology, and cheap energy, we expanded farmlands, chain-sawed forests, exploited fisheries, mined minerals, pumped oil, and flattened mountains for their buried coal. And we did these things in a way that was not remotely sustainable. By harvesting renewable resources faster than they could regrow, by using non-renewable resources that could not be recycled, and by choking environments with industrial wastes, we were borrowing from future generations and from other species.
Nordhaus writes: “For decades, each increment of economic growth in developed economies has brought lower resource and energy use than the last.” This trend of severing the tie between GDP and energy/materials throughput is called “decoupling.” Many economists make big claims for past decoupling and promise much more of it in the future. But careful analysis of decoupling to date shows that most is attributable to accounting error. And to get the developing world up to the level of an average American’s energy usage would require nearly quadrupling global energy consumption, even assuming advances in efficiency. So, unless we find ways to make decoupling actually happen in the future more reliably and at higher rates, growing the global economy will require us to use more of the Earth’s depleted resources.
It is true that some past warnings about the consequences of overpopulation and overconsumption, framed as forecasts, proved wrong. Thomas Malthus famously thoughtfamine would engulf humanity within decades; it didn’t. He failed to foresee industrial agriculture. Paul Ehrlich thought rapid population growth would lead to catastrophe in the 1980s, but he failed to anticipate the impacts of globalization and debt — which enables us to consume now and pay later. Peak oil analysts didn’t foresee the fracking frenzy. Yet cornucopian economists who perceive no problem in the expectation of endless growth on a finite planet likewise failed to foresee climate change, the exponential increase in extinction rates primarily as a result of human-caused habitat degradation, the collapse of fisheries from overfishing, and much, much more.
How can we judge whether cornucopians, or so-called Malthusians, will be right in the long run? One way would be to keep a running account of key biophysical factors on which the prospering of our species depends. If an alarm bell sounds for any of those key factors, we should sit up and pay attention. After all, Liebig’s Law (another foundation of ecology) tells us that growth limits are set not by total resources available, but by the single scarcest necessary resource.
Fortunately, somebody is keeping those accounts. Indeed, a cottage industry of environmental scientists, led by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center and Will Steffen of the Australian National University, has identified nine planetary boundaries that we transgress at our peril: climate change, ocean acidification, biosphere integrity, biochemical flows, land-system change, freshwater use, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, and the introduction of novel entities into environments.
We are currently exceeding the “safe” marks for four of these boundaries:
Another way of keeping track is the ecological footprint, which measures human demand on nature in terms of the quantity of land and water it takes to support an economy sustainably. The Global Footprint Network calculates that humanity is currently exceeding Earth’s sustainable productivity by 60 percent. We do this, again, by drawing down resources that future generations and other species would otherwise use. So, as a result of our actions, Earth’s long-term carrying capacity for humans is actually declining. Nordhaus is right that it’s not a fixed quantity; the problem is that we’re reducing it rather than adding to it in a way that can be maintained.
DEVISE YOUR own scorecard. What warning signs would you expect to see if we humans were pressing at the limits of global carrying capacity? Resource depletion? Check. Pollution? Check. Dying oceans? Check. Human populations subjected to increasing stress? Double check.
Here’s one more that we probably should be paying more attention to: Wild terrestrial mammals now represent just 4.2 percent of terrestrial mammalian biomass, the balance — 95.8 percent — being livestock and humans. Maybe we could make some inroads on that remaining 4.2 percent, but it’s pretty clear from this single statistic that we humans have already commandeered most of the biosphere.
Optimism is essential; it draws us toward the best possible futures. But when it turns into wishful thinking, it can blind us to the consequences of our present actions. In the worst potential case, the results could be collectively suicidal.
Richard Heinberg is the author of 13 books and a Senior Fellow with the Post Carbon Institute. His essays and articles have appeared in print or online at Nature, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, the Quarterly Review, Resilience, The Oil Drum, and Pacific Standard, among other publications.
103 Comments on "We Are Exceeding Earth’s Carrying Capacity"
Davy on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:16 pm
“Elites’ will have no idea how to find anything without GPS telling them where to go. They will be among the first to go after the SHTF. THEY are the ones locked up in some well known bunker with no security to protect them. They will be targets for the ‘outsiders’.”
Geeze, that is stupid. Who are the elites first of all and what part of the world? I doubt you are going to say that shit to a Navy SEAL. I would call a SEAL elite. Without being more specific on what kind of elite and where your above statement reeks or emotional nonsense. We know you guys don’t like the elites but let’s keep things real instead of emotional.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:24 pm
Bill Gates gave out a free book this year to all US college grads, that argued the world had never been better.. (pukes blood)
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:25 pm
“If your location is as good of a bug out spot as you claim..then it reasonable to assume that the elites and powers that be know about it as well..And they will come to call when the time is right..They could use it to protect the elites or others VIP’s..Just saying..”
You really do appear to be having some serious difficulties MM.
I don’t live in a ‘bug out spot’. I live in British Columbia. Other than in Vancouver, Victoria, and a couple of other urban centres, there are no people here. Millions upon millions of hectares of wilderness MM, and nothing else.
There would be absolutely no good reason for anybody to spend the time, energy, and/ or effort to get here, and there are literally thousands of small communities throughout Canada. Same thing. Nothing but wilderness.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:26 pm
Davy
When I say the elites I mean the rich..Government officials, CEO’s, 1 percenter’s..
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:29 pm
Greg
Well if you are so hidden in the woods than that would be a good reason to take your location..I am just saying that the same reasons you choose your location, might be the same reasons someone else wants to steal it from you in the future..And I am just saying they got troops they could send after you to take your location very easily..
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:33 pm
“Bill Gates gave out a free book this year to all US college grads, that argued the world had never been better.. (pukes blood)”
Bill Gates owns an island compound in coastal British Columbia MM.
GregT on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:38 pm
“Well if you are so hidden in the woods than that would be a good reason to take your location..I am just saying that the same reasons you choose your location, might be the same reasons someone else wants to steal it from you in the future..And I am just saying they got troops they could send after you to take your location very easily..”
I am not ‘hidden in the woods’ MM, and there would be no good reason for anybody ‘to take my location’. There is nothing here worth taking.
Anonymouse1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 8:52 pm
‘Mushmind’ aka the exceptionlturd is showing even less coherence than usual. Maybe it comes from trying to juggle two incoherent, un-infromed and mentally troubled ‘personalities at the same time.
Advice for your exceptuionalturd. Maybe if you dropped the sock puppet entirely, and re-focused your limited mental resources on your one, dysfunctional personality, instead of two, you might find it easier to keep things stragight(ish) in that cranium of yours? Might help ya know.
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:01 pm
MM, do you ever read the bullshit you write? I doubt it.
“…they got troops they could send after you…”
Who has “troops”? The ‘elite”? Those who are not killed in the beginning of the fall will be hiding in their bunkers from their own “troops”.
You have no idea what amount of supplies would be necessary for “troops” to travel tens or hundreds of miles thru wilderness, to find what, a few days rations for the troops? Not worth the effort and they would know it.
A warehouse in or near the city would be the target, not a place like Greg’s or mine. You need to get a grip on reality Mm.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:02 pm
Greg
You said you are surrounded by tons of wilderness..That would be a good reason for someone to want to steal your location..Just ask yourself why did you choose the location that you did..and don’t you think others could want to steal it for the exact same reasons?
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:16 pm
MM, Why would anyone want to trek into a wilderness to take anything? First, they would have to know how to traverse “wilderness”. It is not like walking down a street in Chicago. It is much more dangerous. Not to mention getting lost. And what for? The possibility of finding something?
You have never been in a true wilderness obviously. I have. You would not last a day there. I have.
And why are you so obsessed with Greg’s location or mine? How does that make your life safer? Oh, that’s right. there is that 22 in your future. Go for it! LMAO!
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:20 pm
BTW MM: I am sure Greg’s ‘neighbors’ are as well prepared as he is and would not need anything from him. They are used to living off the land. It’s called “self-sufficiency, something most Americans are lacking today.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:24 pm
Madkat
You don’t think there are roads that will take you to gregs house? You dumbshit..and the governments got troops that can handle taking any location..All they would have to do is put a few snipers waiting outside his house and when he came outside..Boom..
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:25 pm
Madkat
Why cyan’t you let greg respond for himself? Is your prepper plans so fragile that you need to carry his water?
DMyers on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 9:48 pm
MM argues that “Greg’s Wilderness Retreat” (soon to be a movie) is vulnerable in direct relation with its invulnerability. TPTB will be looking in exactly the locations where one might feel invulnerable.
Greg argues that this makes no sense, in that TPTB would only be seeking advantage and acquisition, and his claim to survival has value as neither.
Assume that TPTB are intent on nothing so much as stamping out any and every remnant of resistance and independence. For this cause, a trek into the wilderness would be little to pay to lock down a potential problem.
If this assumption is correct, and it could be, then MM holds the correct position in the matter. If this is not true, then Greg prevails.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 10:08 pm
DMyers
My point is that I am sure the elites have all the worlds best locations mapped out just in case of a shit hits the fan situation..And it would be smart to take the best locations from others who have spent time and money developing them..and since they have access to militaries they could sweep out any location they wanted very easily..And not have to worry about the rule of law or anything..And one thing to keep in mind the elites have known these dark days were coming for almost fifty years via peak oil and the limits to growth…So they have had nothing but time to figure out ever angle..
Makati1 on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 10:44 pm
MM, you know shit about what the “elite” know or will do. Consider who they are, mostly pampered brats with money that will be worthless. Not hardened outdoors men with survival skills. They will be huddled in their mansions afraid to go out into the real world where people have guns and know how to use them. They are outnumbered at least 100 to one and will be the first to go when the SHTF. Hell, they are already afraid to go into the poor neighborhoods and you think they are going to trek into the wilderness where there are not only armed people, but snakes, bears, etc. LOL
The “roads” need vehicles with fuel. How many “elites” even know how to find fuel when the pumps stop? And a road can be blocked with a few downed trees or power lines. You have obviously been watching too many “reality” TV shows to have any idea what it will be like when the SHTF. You live in some 12 year old’s fantasy land, not reality.
BTW: I was not aware that there were rules about who responds to bullshit? I am very secure in my preps. You are very insecure in yours. 22 or buckshot? LMAO
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 11:17 pm
Madkat
Prepping is futile because you need contentious supplies of fresh food and water..Even if you have several years worth and nobody finds you..you will then just starve to death after that year or two worth of supplies runs out..Unless you know how to survive as a hunter gather again..And I doubt many people who grew up in a first world country do.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 11:19 pm
madkat
I am not saying i know what the elites have planned..I am just saying that locations like the one greg describes would be idle in a SHTF situation..And I wouldn’t be surprised if the elites come and take places like that and use them for themselves..why build your own cabin retreat if others will do all the work and then you can just steal there location and supplies..
DerHundistLos on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 11:31 pm
“Bill Gates gave out a free book this year to all US college grads, that argued the world had never been better..”
I’m not at all surprised. The ultra-elites know exactly what’s coming. You and I as well have a general idea what’s coming. Consequently, don’t you find it very strange that the masters of the universe display no sense of urgency to solve the various environmental catastrophes now in the formation stage? However, it’s not at all strange, at least from their perspective. They need to perpetuate BAU to allow for the continued provisioning for their future.
When the collapse arrives in the not too distant future, two options exist for the masters of the universe like Bill Gates. Option I is to move below ground for as long as is necessary until above ground stabilizes; however, if the earth goes Venus, then Option II is exercised (aka the Off-Planet Option). The rest of us poor slobs along with all other life are destined to a brief existence of hell on earth.
BAU is the mantra that will be drilled into the masses until its time to exercise Options I and/or II.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 27th Jul 2018 11:53 pm
DerHundistL
There only option is to go underground..Earth is the only solid planet in our solar system that has a magnetic field..And without it the suns solar radiation would fry your brain..Who cares though if they want to entomb themselves into coffins..Let them do it..
Makati1 on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:14 am
MM, again, you have no idea what the Ps is like or the people here. You have only your narrow Americanized propaganda version, not to mention no clue as to climate or food availability.
I do not plan to live off of ‘stored food’. I plan to live off of food grown on site. And my neighbors will do likewise on their property as they already do. It will be something like 1800s American when people were not reliant on stores and imports.
I can grow enough on a 1/10 acre to see me thru the year. So, having many acres and a year round growing season makes it possible to live quite well. Two springs, a river nearby and 12 feet of rain annually guarantees me water.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/yes-you-can-survive-the-coming-economic-nightmare-one-family-in-california-grows-6000-pounds-of-produce-on-just-110th-of-an-acre
You are the one in trouble when the SHTF, not me.
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:53 am
About Soviet/Russian “peak oil”, there isn’t any:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/fsu-oil-production-and-consumption.png
1965-2010 FSU oil production. They can still frack that XXL country, God forbid.
The collapse of FSU oil production 1989-1998, had nothing to do with “peak oil”, a depletion related phenomenon, but everything with collapse of society and subsequent recovery after 1998, thanks to Vladimir the Great.
“MM, Your picture of the future is warped by your watching too many porn and zombie movies.”
If you truly want to understand what a Bolshevik is, look no further. Millimind is the real deal. A sociopath and advocate of mass murder by the millions. Milllind, that is the Gulag, the USSR. Exactly the kind of people the Austrian wanted to prevent to do to Germany what they had done to lesser talented countries like Russia, or later China and Cambodia. Putting Millimind in a labor camp is a rather benign form of mass murder prevention. Italy and Benito, Spain and Franco, same story.
Oh, and if the Americans do not begin to really pay attention, they could be next and become the victim of racial Bolshevism.
Way out for America: identitarianism and reorientation towards its own roots of thousands of years, that is reorientation towards Europe. Dropping kosher ideas like exceptionalism and reinvent yourself. Think Roman, think Antiquity, hell think IS.lol Christianity is not going to cut it.
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry-ebook/dp/B0026772N8/ref=sr_1_2
(Nietzsche for Americans)
German speakers can directly go to the original:
https://www.amazon.de/S%C3%A4mtliche-Werke-Studienausgabe-Giorgio-Colli/dp/3110220970/ref=sr_1_6
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 2:03 am
MM argues that “Greg’s Wilderness Retreat” (soon to be a movie) is vulnerable in direct relation with its invulnerability. TPTB will be looking in exactly the locations where one might feel invulnerable.
Greg argues that this makes no sense, in that TPTB would only be seeking advantage and acquisition, and his claim to survival has value as neither.
Assume that TPTB are intent on nothing so much as stamping out any and every remnant of resistance and independence. For this cause, a trek into the wilderness would be little to pay to lock down a potential problem.
TPTB already own everything. Nobody is bothered about a few preppers living in the sticks. You had them in the USSR as well, in Siberia. As long as they didn’t oppose communist ideology, nobody cared and they were free.
The challenge for TPTB is to *KEEP* everything they already have. They fear, and have to fear, white secessionism.
Millimind’s kin try to make whitey powerless, they admit it, just like Millimind does (“white devil”):
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/paul-krugman-white-americans-are-losing-their-country/
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/10/26/the-new-america/
Some sound, time-tested, yet cynical advice from the Mother Civilization:
https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/expelled.htm
It is you or them:
#110
Look at me, I’m a train on a track
I’m a train, I’m a train
I’m a chook-a train, yeah
Look at me, gotta load on my back
I’m a train, I’m a train
I’m a chook-a train, yeah
Look at me, I’m going somewhere
I’m a train, I’m a train
I’m a chook-a train, yeah
DerHundistLos on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 2:31 am
@ Master of Disaster
Think about this…… Bill Gates or Warren Buffett have the personal capacity to stop, or at the least greatly ameliorate, the Mass Extinction Emergency.
Doug Tompkins and his wife spent millions (in contrast to the tens of BILLIONS of Gates or Buffett) to preserve the Entire virgin Patagonian rainforests of Chile. International timber companies and mining interests had created a partnership to buy Patagonia, but thankfully the Tompkins had the right capital available to shut-out Halliburton et al. And, yes, Dick Cheney used every bit of his evilness to disqualify the Tompkins by employing a vicious and nasty PR campaign.
Now convert the Tompkins millions into Gates’ billions. Imagine the possibilities. No such thing happening. The Gates Foundation stipulates that donations are only directed to projects that benefit humans.
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 2:46 am
Bicycle world record attempt: 1219 km in 24 hours. Think Northern Germany to Italy.
http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/nicola-walde-im-velomobil-zum-weltrekord-a-1220190.html
Tricycle really, but no motor. Pure human power by a triathlon athlete.
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 4:24 am
“Smart meters can be used to ration energy”
https://mattbell.org/are-smart-meters-being-used-to-ration-our-energy-use
After 2020 smart meters will become the norm in western Europe and America. And with it the possibility to ration distributed energy, a desirable functionality facing flimate change and potential energy shortages.
You don’t like being rationed? Install solar panels or participate in a public renewable energy project and earn bonus points and get derationed according to your bonus points.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 4:40 am
clogg
Look at their oil production fall off a cliff..you moron..you don’t stop drilling when your economy is in free fall..And why did their oil production go down when their gas production went up? And why did their currency get hammered on the exact same year their oil production peaked?
you are a moron who doesn’t understand energy
MASTERMIND on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 4:44 am
Clogg
When the global oil shortage hits the exact same things will happen to the world economy..
Is The World Sleepwalking Into The Next Oil Crisis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil-crisis/#509edc8b44cf
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 5:07 am
“MM, again, you have no idea what the Ps is like or the people here. You have only your narrow Americanized propaganda version, not to mention no clue as to climate or food availability.”
Billy 3rd world, there you go again dismissing the science and the numbers. The P’s is a net importer of food and supplies to grow food. Your forest and fisheries are in decline or failure. If there is a collapse cities will depopulate and people will overrun little farms like yours. That is reality and you live in fantasy.
“I do not plan to live off of ‘stored food’. I plan to live off of food grown on site. And my neighbors will do likewise on their property as they already do. It will be something like 1800s American when people were not reliant on stores and imports.”
Your food will not last and your little farm at risk. BTW, are you ever going to get to the farm this fantasy farm thing has been going on for so long it is almost as if it is in your mind only?
“I can grow enough on a 1/10 acre to see me thru the year. So, having many acres and a year round growing season makes it possible to live quite well. Two springs, a river nearby and 12 feet of rain annually guarantees me water.”
!/10 of an acre is not going to feed you. You will need more. You have several other people too and they need food. You are pissing in the wind if you think that you are set. You never farm either. You are always here on the net or at the beach. Your talk is hilarious.
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 5:14 am
“Smart meters can be used to ration energy”
This is something that will be useful when or if the grid goes unstable. Metering should be able to force electrical usage reductions. Power could be reduced to just enough to keep the lights on in case a brown out threatens. Reduce power to force behavioral changes. People will have to be educated because they will have to understand they will need to turn off high draw items or else they won’t have the reduced power that is available from the meters.
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 5:32 am
!/10 of an acre is not going to feed you. You will need more.
For Europeans: 1 acre = 4046,86 m2
According to norms established by for instance the Belgian government, you can live of 50 m2/person, assuming the harvest succeeds and not hampered by for instance drought.
https://www.visionair.nl/wetenschap/hoe-groot-moet-je-tuin-zijn-om-100-zelfvoorzienend-te-worden/
In other words, 1/100 of an acre would be sufficient, 1/10 already is “overkill” (dubious choice of words in this context).
I have 100 m2 in the middle of a city and that is sufficient for 2 persons (in meager times, like war for instance) and you aim at two harvests per year. Obviously I do not confine myself to the potatoes, beets, carrots, beans, tomatoes, cabage from my garden and often buy “luxury” stuff from the better shops, since you only live once and we fortunately are not living in war times, yet.
Two harvests can be achieved by smart planting and timing and using a green house to initiate growth and only plant them out when you no longer can postpone it.
Potatoes can be grown in columns on the terrace, saving a lot of space:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/growing-potatoes-in-the-city/
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 6:09 am
Sure neder, this is assuming everything goes right in a perfect world. Assuming you can preserve what you produce and keep it preserved. It is assuming you can get all the necessary other inputs to keep fertility and plant next year. It assumes you have the time to intensively manage that garden while the world is falling apart around you. It assumes all your neighbors are doing the same so they are not ready to descend on your itty bitty plot. This is not going to save you or billy 3rd world. You guys are living in a fantasy world. You numbers are bogus. 1/100 of an acre is barely enough to stick a small shed on. This is the problem with people today they don’t realize all the things we need to live on. We need grains in our diet and we need meat too. You can argue otherwise but this is the case. You are not going to live on vegetables alone except for a short term survival diet. You might be able to have a store of food with a 1/10 acre for when a collapse hits if your garden is growing at the right time of the year. It will supplement a period of rationing or no food at all.
I have a quarter acre that has tomatoes, cucumbers, melons. I have fruit trees, grape vines, and berries. I also have asparagus. I have a spot to plant potatoes if necessary. We have not for a few years. My biggest asset is my goats. You really need the concentrated caloric value meat can give in your diet. I have bigger investment in cows than goats despite what my detractors harp on me about. My cows will be for selling or barter for other goods. I may go in with several other people to utilize a cow. Goats are nice because they can be butchers and provide food for a week or two instead of a season for cows. The problem with having a season worth of food from a cow is storage and preservation. That is a lot of work.
I really don’t expect this to last me very long if there is a bad crash because continuing an operation like I have in such a situation will be very difficult. It is difficult now in the best of times with access to supplies. For me it is the time between the start of the crash and stabilization. If life stabilizes after a crash I will be in good shape as a food producer. You guys are pissing up a rope if you think you can live year round on a 1/10 acre.
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 9:23 am
For survival you do not need cows and goats. Survival for commoners should only be directed towards crisis of relative short duration, like one or several seasons (civil war). After that, society will always recover and food production will be restored quickly. Famines are rare, unless engineered like the “Holomodor” in the Ukraine in the thirties.
A “little” extra from 50 m2 + Venezuelan cuisine (-10 kg in a year) will suffice to survive.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 11:52 am
“Unless you know how to survive as a hunter gather again..And I doubt many people who grew up in a first world country do.”
Exactly.
Have you ever done any backcountry travel MM? Do you know how to survive in the wilderness? Do you know what to eat, what water to drink, how to make a fire, build a shelter, keep warm? Do you know how to deal with wild animals that would like to eat you for breakfast?
Most people in this day and age don’t have a clue, especially not ‘the elite”. I have an entire lifetime of experience travelling throughout the wilderness of British Columbia, a good deal of that time spent alone.
The vast majority of people today likely wouldn’t survive a week, during the summer months. During the winter months, most likely wouldn’t survive the first night.
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 12:01 pm
It’s not rocket science gregger. There are lots of people into the outdoors that understand the basics.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 12:04 pm
“For survival you do not need cows and goats.”
The indigenous peoples of this area survived for tens of thousands of years. They did not keep livestock. There is a year round supply of meat in every one of the rivers here, and the Pacific Ocean has more than enough food to go around. All free for the taking.
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 12:07 pm
“For survival you do not need cows and goats.”
It doesn’t hurt to have livestock if you can manage them. BTW, my comment did not say you had to have cows and goats. That was neders addition.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 12:54 pm
“There are lots of people into the outdoors that understand the basics.”
Lots of people who understand the basics die, Davy. It is a common occurance in the BC backcountry.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 12:58 pm
“BTW, my comment did not say you had to have cows and goats. That was neders addition.”
My comment was in response to Cloggie’s comment Davy, not yours. And there is nobody on the forum with the username “neder”. That would simply be more of your usual belttling and bullying.
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:02 pm
Sure Greggie, lots of people that act like experts die too. It’s called Cocky.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:04 pm
Yes Davy, even experts die. It is not at all uncommon.
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:07 pm
Is there a username exceptionalturd? I say that because that does not seem to bother you. In fact you support and enable the author, Asperger. BTW, my comment was clarifying neder’s misrepresentation of my comment. This is a regular strategy of neder. He likes to lie, distort, and embellish what his detractors say.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:08 pm
And more often than not, their bodies are never found.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:13 pm
“Is there a username exceptionalturd? I say that because that does not seem to bother you.”
After five years of your constant harassment, personal attacks and bullying of other members of this forum, what else would you expect Davy?
Cloggie on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:27 pm
And there is nobody on the forum with the username “neder”.
Nah, I know who he means. Although I must admit I miss being called a Natzi for some time now. Sexes up my somewhat uneventful life as a programmer.
https://goo.gl/images/v1JDwU
(that’s me during our latest company party)
Davy on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 1:48 pm
Expect what Greggie, hypocrisy and gang censorship? You can give the username shit a rest until you start being fair, balance, and quit the anti-American trolling you have engaged in for 5 years.
Boat on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 3:21 pm
AI will make it possible to predict your thoughts and send electric controlling jolts to prevent them. That will end the crazy shyt goings-on round this mother ship. Lol
Boat on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 3:38 pm
Try watching woman’s rugby. That’s a gang you should fear. I am all for woman’s rights now.
GregT on Sat, 28th Jul 2018 3:42 pm
“Expect what Greggie, hypocrisy and gang censorship? You can give the username shit a rest until you start being fair, balance, and quit the anti-American trolling you have engaged in for 5 years.”
I am not anti-American Davy, and there is nobody on this forum with the username Greggie.