[AgentR11]

I don't see many around here hoping for collapse; maybe a couple of fringe enviro's; but generally speaking, I think most around here are either hoping to avoid it entirely, or hoping to mitigate the impact somewhat so that it's at least survivable or tolerable. I certainly expect collapse; but I'm really, really hoping it comes a few centuries from now. I'm ready for the game if it happens in the next decade, but I'd expect it to be nothing other than excruciatingly painful and spiritually catastrophic, but play the dealt hand, I will.

I think you're making a mistake in imputing desire from interest and concern.

[Tanada]

Anyone who thinks Humanity has no impact needs to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJhgGbRA6Hk

Will we be able to feed 9 Billion?

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')I think you're making a mistake in imputing desire from interest and concern.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', 'T')he "abruptly and completely" part sure sounds more like an event than a process to me.

Maybe collapse is just as time dependent as sustainability is.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

I voted for fast crash.

Anyway, one good definition of a collapse process, is that when a society needs a resource and uses it faster than it can be replaced. At some point usually the use of the resource degrades the production of the resource, and in from that point things spiral downward quickly. The ecologists call that overshoot and there are plenty of candidates to be that resource. That would be my definition of a collapse.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'D')efinition Collapse: The point at which the per capita purchasing power of residents of industrialized nations, measured in bushels of grain, starts to decline. My take on this definition is that we are right at the cliff's edge, we've slipped a couple times, but caught ourselves on small outcroppings or branches; unfortunately the prospects of getting back up on the safety of the plateau have become quite remote, and the pit below us is deep, foul, and absolutely horrific in every way imaginable.

[Timo]

Perhaps more applicable than grains is water. It takes water to grow grains. It takes grains to feed cows to grow meats. It takes water for people to drink to survive. It takes water for resource extraction via fracking.

Besides, grains have gluten, and the big dietary craze these days is going gluten free. (joke)Water, i think, is a bigger key metric of collapse than grains. It is becoming more of a requisite resource in many parts of the world than oil, and we've all seen the wars that that resource can cause.

This whole discussion reminds me of the Drake Equation that aims to calculate the chances of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. One key component of that equation is estimating the likelihood that a planet's intelligent life can evolve past the technological abilities to destroy themselves. That's the point where humanity is at right now, and we're currently headed in the wrong direction. Back when the equation was first developed, the primary threat to our existence was nuclear war. That threat is still there, but not to the same degree as a few decades ago. Now the threat is over population, and resource dependency, and wars for those resources, and global warming, and human indifference to each and every one of those threats.

We're toast.

[Pops]

Talked yourself right into that didn't you?
LOL

According to a farm mag I was reading, harvest needs to double by 2050 and 70% of that increase must come from technology. That's BAU food production of course, not Stem Cell Burger, Algae Shakes and Soylent Green Fries.

There are dozens of combinations of GM traits available now, mostly herbicide and Bt targeted but they have changed ag tremendously, eliminating many trips through the field and, for a time anyway, the use of really nasty pesticides. I expect that to continue but the driver of coarse grains demand (along with "biofuels) is protein production - 80% of grains feeds animals.

But in other news, a big development recently is that farmed fish has surpassed beef production. Not that farmed fish don't eat grain, they do, but they are much more efficient at feed conversion. Farmed will surpass wild fish soon.


--
Precision farming using enhanced gps can steer a machine within an inch of the exact path it traveled a year or decade ago. Database enabled quipment can fertilize and plant each seed exactly to a density that best utilizes a particular square yard of field as imaged from space, previous yield, micro climate data, grid soil sampling, etc. and they haven't even deployed drones yet. Corn harvest might approach 300bu/ac within a decade or two. How long it can continue I have no idea.

Efficiencies will continue as tech and especially data driven application of inputs increases. (I'm not talking about the kind of "efficiency" popularized on here lately that is synonymous with "eliminate")

[Timo]

Pops, i appreciate the updates on new ag technologies. Surely, they'll all be put to their maximum use for the maximum benefit. However, one factor that these new technologies can't account for is weather, unless the UN has some new global weather-controlling device they haven't yet unveiled. Weather extremes are becoming much more frequent, and all of ag is, of course, dependent on the graces of good weather. I just can't see any amount of farming or alternate food production technologies producing enough food, sustainably anyway, for 9 billion people. And quite cynically, i hope i'm not wrong on that.

As for farmed fish surpassing natural catch, well, i think that's inevitable regardless of farmed fish tech. I just read this morning that coral reefs around the planet are in their last few decades of existence. Overfishing, rising water temps, increasing acidification, increasing dead zones, increasing deep-water oil leaks and the toxins used to clean those up, and even Fukushima all collectively point to the end of "natural" foods from the ocean. As far as the toxins go, i'll refrain from mispronouncing that word as "Texans." There does seem to be a parallel there, but there's another thread for that. Thanks, btw.

And yeah, you pegged it. I talked myself into my ultimate conclusion in my previous post. I'm sticking with it.

[~Mark~M~]

Civilization would be slowly crippling adjusting its social institutions. But, oil would be not the first to go. Earlier, the planet will see exhaustion of a bunch of crucial rare metals, fertilizers and species.
I'd say, it can be avoided only by a new world economy developing further than these limitations.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('~Mark~M~', 'C')ivilization would be slowly crippling adjusting its social institutions. But, oil would be not the first to go. Earlier, the planet will see exhaustion of a bunch of crucial rare metals, fertilizers and species.
I'd say, it can be avoided only by a new world economy developing further than these limitations.

[Subjectivist]

The old rule NASA used for astronaut training is 3/3/3, three minutes without air, three days without water, three weks without food. It was part of he survival training program in case they had to land in unknown territory. You could say our whole civilization is the same way but its thee days without fuel, three weeks without food and three centuries without civilization.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'A')nyone who thinks Humanity has no impact needs to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJhgGbRA6Hk

Will we be able to feed 9 Billion?

[Shaved Monkey]

If we work out how to feed 9 billion the next problem will be trying to work out how to feed 10

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', 'I')f we work out how to feed 9 billion the next problem will be trying to work out how to feed 10

[~Mark~M~]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'H')ow can you debate or create an argument over what is presented in this Ted Talks? You can't. And so it is not debated. Just ignored.

[Newfie]

It's too late for me to vote but I do think we are currently in a slow crash stat with the strong possibility of a transition to fast crash at any time.

We are currently over extending our population for the available resources. I am one who believes Earth's sustainable human population is one billion or less. So, if you define collapse of civilization as a drastic reduction in human population then that is a certainty.

What we see now is that the average human life is starting to get shorter, and more impoverished, and violent. These are indicators that we have rached our apex and are trending down. So far it is pretty gentle.

But, given the coonflunce of stressors, things could get much worse very quickly. It is extremely unlikely that things will get BETTER. So getting worse looks much more likely.

This report by the World Economic Forum tries to make some sense of the risk scenario we face. It is worth a read.

http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-r ... th-edition

My take on this report is that the polled population, a generally wealthy and well educated world wide crowd, have a generally pessimistic view. But when you look at the view of the folks with specialized knowledge the outlook becomes much worse, especially with regard to climate change. What this means is that the economist sees the economic threat, but undervalues the climate change threat. Thus the report tends to be optimistic.

Looking to the 2008 financial disaster, clearly we were closer to breakdown than the experts had anticipated. Now looking to arctic climate change predictions it is clear the experts underestimated the rate of change. From these two data points, not that two is sufficient, we see that the experts are often too optimistic.

My belief is that, should we get the right mixture of stressors, it could trigger a global collapse.

[Pops]

Shaved, we need to figure out 9B pretty fast because the "curve-bending" is not going as planned.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '-')-The world’s population is on track to reach 9.6 billion by midcentury and nearly 11 billion by 2100, which is 700 million more than was projected two years ago.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')hat's good. Maybe simply grain per capita

[ralfy]

Ecological footprint might also be helpful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _footprint