Look up the "Simon–Ehrlich wager" - essentially a economist and naturalist held a very public bet about whether certain critical resources would dramatically rise on price due to scarcity constraints. Essentially the economist, who bet that we would not see those prices spike as market forces drive resource efficiency. In the case of this wager the economist was correct.
Ultimately you are right. We will ultimately and inevitably face resource constraints. How we respond and which resources will provide the limiting constraint is unclear.
> Ultimately you are right. We will ultimately and inevitably face resource constraints. How we respond and which resources will provide the limiting constraint is unclear.
Why?
Keep in mind that it is not evident that population will continue to grow.
You are absolutely right. In ecology (which mimics the scaling of any physical system) population responds to resource stresses. I consider this a signal of resource scarcity.
As for why it's inevitable: we have unbounded ability to innovate and become resource efficient -market forces will guide this. However there are fixed constraints that will stress human behavior in ways we can't necessarily predict. Some of this is being seen now with shocks to supply chains with climate change. Prices will rise across society as more of our productive capacity is dealt with dealing with the effects of climate change.
> In ecology (which mimics the scaling of any physical system) population responds to resource stresses. I consider this a signal of resource scarcity.
Resource scarcity is not the only thing that causes population to plateau. Human intelligence is a pretty huge variable here which allows us to do things like fulfill our evolutionary urges without producing children. I'll agree that scarcity causes population to plateau, but I don't agree that a plateau in population is inherently an indication of scarcity.
It's rather silly to talk about hypothetical ecological populations in a void, when we can observe the actual populations we're trying to make predictions about.
> I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. By the law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind. -Thomas Malthus An Essay on the Principle of Population [1798]
> The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. -Paul Ehrlich The Population Bomb [1968]
Of course there's a limit. What that limit is no one knows and most predictions will be wrong. Some day someone may be right in their prediction given the right conditions.
Eh, sure, but that doesn't really address the parent comment's concern if population keeps growing unbounded. The real answer is that population doesn't keep growing unbounded.
"Currently used" and "required" are two different things.
It's not going to happen overnight, but we have the ability to transition a lot of current agriculture toward more sustainable practices, and that's only going to improve as we learn more. I'm not talking about pie-in-the-sky stuff like vertical farming either, I'm talking about more about more proven techniques like soil restoration and permaculture.
Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present. Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements. It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agriculture. Where to source 200% more arable acres to make that transition is conveniently left as an exercise by it's proponents, as is how to handle the massive increase in labor required to harvest from permaculture lands.
> Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present.
Fallow doesn't mean idle. Notably, raising animals on land that isn't producing crops is actively conducive to soil restoration and speeds the process, requiring less fallow time. Animals are already being raised on arable land, so a lot of this could be done without any more arable land--it just requires that instead of crops and animals being farmed in separate monocultures, they be intermingled cyclically or otherwise.
Some schools of thought note that animals are a less-efficient way of producing calories, but I'll note that reducing nutrition needs to "calories" is a hopelessly insufficient measure. If we consider the protein needs of the population, which are likely higher than most people are consuming, animals are a much more efficient means of obtaining protein. Animal farming is also criticized for its greenhouse gas emissions, but different animals have very different greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. poultry emit far less than cattle) and healthy soil sequesters carbon. The reduction of fertilizer use would also significantly reduce carbon emissions.
> Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements.
I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.
> It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agriculture.
I am not sure where you're getting that number, but even if it's right, "at absolute max" discounts the inevitability of continued innovation. I agree the numbers aren't currently equal, but as I said before, nobody is saying these changes happen overnight.
> Where to source 200% more arable acres to make that transition is conveniently left as an exercise by it's proponents
As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals, and intermingling those animals with crops means the land you're claiming is "idle" is not. Further, when soil becomes healthier both become more efficient.
Also notable is that for permaculture purposes, a lot more land can be considered arable than would be considered arable for monoculture crops. The traditional rows of crops are actually pretty terrible for certain very reliable crops, such as potatoes, which benefit from more water retention--which happens when rocks and roots of other plants block water flow. Blueberries benefit from acidic soil, such as soil with pine needles in it--from pine forest which can in turn be treated as timber land.
> as is how to handle the massive increase in labor required to harvest from permaculture lands.
I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
>I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.
No argument there. It beats the shit out of having a lawn.
>As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,
Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
> I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.
No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter. Ag has some of the tightest margins of any industry and we're all still going broke every time we go to the grocery store. Ignoring the screaming match over immigration and migrant labor that's guaranteed to trigger once someone points out who's most likely to service any major increase in demand for ag labor, the added costs associated are absolutely going to get passed on to consumers. How many people do you think it would take to replace one X-series combine?
> > As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,
> The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.
True, but that's not a refutation of what I said. I didn't say a lot of pasture lands are arable, I said "a lot of arable land is used to raise animals."
I'd also like to reiterate my point that cattle are not the animals I'd like to see more of.
> No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter.
We're already subsidizing agriculture massively, and while there are many forms of government spending I oppose, a subsidy which a) allows people to afford food, b) pays workers, and c) improves our food sustainability and security, is exactly the sort of thing I want my taxes going to.
