Population & Malthus

I was wandering around the web the other day and came across a post on why people won't run out of food. Unfortunately, I didn't save the link, but the gist of the argument seemed to be that it hasn't happened in the last 50 years and therefore, it won't. The added feature was that if there seemed to be a problem, technology would fix it.

In and of itself, this argument doesn't seem even remotely compelling. It is obvious that there is a limit to the number of people that can be supported on the resources of the earth, no matter how good our technology is. The science fiction books that suppose an ever increasing human population also suppose space travel to give those people resources to live on.

In the more short term, there is a limit to the number of people that can be supported by the resources and technology we have available or are likely to have in the next 50 years or so.

In this vein, it is perhaps worth noticing that most of the technology we use today rests on fundamental discoveries that were made before the 1920s. These discoveries still have legs (there is a whole world of insight still to be learned in biology), but expecting wholesale magic may be not the thing to bank upon. I do think that a future of hope does depend on science and technology, but that doesn't mean it can solve all problems instantly.

At any rate, a compelling argument against running out of food in the next century would rest on showing on the one hand, where the needed food would come from and on the other hand, why we should seriously expect that the population will voluntarily stop expanding before we reach the limits.

It is worth noticing, I think, that it is the high consumption economies that don't have population growth. Unless there is some reason to expect otherwise, it is reasonable to think that slowing growth requires increasing per capita consumption -- including food consumption. This means that the kind and gentle future people imagine requires coming up with much more energy, food, fresh water and the various other accouterments of a modern high quality life, including, I will claim, hope for further improvements.

Finding the land and the fresh water to come up with food, much less food stuffs higher on the food chain (meat instead of potatoes) for the people around today is a challenge. Adding 1/2 again that many people, plus raising their consumption levels by 10 times or so seems, to say the least, a huge challenge. Until and unless I see detailed calculations that show how it can be done at all, I shall remain more than doubtful. When I add in the ways that people (reasonably, imho) fight over the available resources, rather than cooperating, I truly doubt we will actually avoid hitting a Malthusian event in the next 50 years.