A dieoff scenario by Jay Hanson

posted today to the energyresources yahoo group

Excerpt: By 2040, we would need to triple the global food supply in order to meet the
basic food needs of the eleven billion people who are expected to be alive. But doing so would require a 1,000 percent increase in the total energy expended in food production.
HOW COULD IT BE OTHERWISE?

What becomes of the surplus of human life?
It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide,
as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d.
it is stifled or starved, as among other
nations whose population is commensurate to
its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and
endemic diseases; or 4th. it overflows, by
emigration, to places where a surplus of food
is attainable. — James Madison, 1791

For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want
of a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a
horse the rider is lost.

Worldwide, more than 10 million hectares of agricultural land are abandoned
annually because of serious soil degradation. During the last 40 years,
about 30 percent of total world arable land was abandoned because it was no
longer productive. About half of the current arable land now in cultivation
will be unsuitable for food production by the middle of the twenty-first
century. [34]

Within the first decade of the 21’st century, industrial activity will rise
high enough for it to seriously degrade land fertility. This will occur
because of contamination by heavy metals and persistent chemicals, climate
change, salinization, topsoil loss, falling water tables, and increased
levels of ultraviolet radiation from a diminished ozone layer.

Global oil production will peak soon and the spike in oil prices will
quickly exacerbate other major problems facing industrial agriculture. Food
grains produced with modern, high-yield methods (including packaging and
delivery) now contain between four and ten calories of fossil fuel for every
calorie of solar energy. It has been estimated that about four percent of
the nation’s energy budget is used to grow food, while about 10 to 13
percent is needed to put it on our plates. In other words, a staggering
total of 17 percent of America’s energy budget is consumed by agriculture!
[35]

By 2040, we would need to triple the global food supply in order to meet the
basic food needs of the eleven billion people who are expected to be alive.
But doing so would require a 1,000 percent increase in the total energy
expended in food production. [36] But the depletion of oil will make it
physically impossible — thus economically impossible — to provide enough
net energy to agriculture: “A recent review of the future prospects of all
alternatives has been published. The summary conclusion reached is that
there is no known complete substitute for petroleum in its many and varied
uses.” [37] Global food production will drop to a fraction of today’s
numbers: “If the fertilizers, partial irrigation [in part provided by oil
energy], and pesticides were withdrawn, corn yields, for example, would drop
from 130 bushels per acre to about 30 bushels.” [38] Obviously, death
certificates have already been issued for billions of unsuspecting people.

The dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, the declining
fertility of the land, and the positive feedbacks imposed by declining net
energy will force the economy to divert much more investment into the
agriculture and energy sectors as part of a desperate attempt to maintain
agricultural output. Government budgets must also decline in real terms as
greater and greater fractions of the economy are diverted into the resource
sectors.

As resource quality and land fertility continue to fall, society will be
forced to allocate more and more capital to the agriculture and resource
sectors, otherwise the scarcity of food, materials, and fuels would restrict
production still more — it’s circular, there is no way to avoid the
positive feedback. Ultimately, industrial capacity will decline rapidly
taking with it the service and agricultural sectors, which depend upon
industrial inputs.

Constrained by the laws of thermodynamics, the availability of
life-supporting resources will go into a permanent, steep decline.

In less than 20 years, the self-regulating market system will have “run out
of gas” and vanished. With the market system gone, the ruling elites will
fall back on the good old-fashioned means of control: a police state. In
the US alone, 200 million guns in private ownership guarantee that this
police state will quickly devolve into rebellion and anarchy.

If the anarchy scenario were to reach its natural conclusion, the global
elites would be eliminated by the angry masses. Those who managed to escape
would die more miserably than the poor since they are unsuited for
day-to-day survival because they lived their lives like queen bees.

But when the above scenario seems inevitable, the elites will simply
depopulate most of the planet with a bioweapon. [39] When the time comes,
it will be the only logical solution to their problem. It’s a first-strike
tactic that leaves the built-infrastructure and other species in place and
allows the elites to perpetuate their own genes into the foreseeable future:
“War is a male reproductive strategy. All that is needed for the strategy
to evolve, is that aggressors fight and win more often than they lose”. [40]

The global genocide will be rationalized as a second chance for humanity –
a new Garden of Eden — a new Genesis. The temptation will prove
irresistible:

“Strangelove said, ‘Offhand, I should say
that in addition to the factors of youth,
health, sexual fertility, intelligence,
and a cross section of necessary skills,
it would be absolutely vital that our top
government and military men be included,
to foster and impart the required principles
of leadership and tradition.’

“The arrow had not missed its mark, and around
the table there was an outbreak of sober,
nodding heads. Attention was concentrated
more than ever on Doctor Strangelove.

“Strangelove went on. ‘Naturally they would
breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much
time and little to do. With the proper
breeding techniques, and starting with a ratio
of, say, ten women to each man, I should
estimate the progeny of the original group of
two hundred thousand would emerge a hundred
years later as well over a hundred million…’”

How could it be otherwise?

Jay

[ references in http://www.dieoff.com/page185.htm ]