Feeding The World

[Khandro]

The world population is projected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050, an increase of more than 25% from the current 2020 population of 7.8 billion (10 Jul 2020).

When the finite resource of oil runs out, which drives all the world's agricultural machinery, produces fertilizer & facilitates transport, how are we going to feed them? Does anyone have even the vaguest of idea, & why does nobody seem to be planning for this eventuality which may not be far off, certainly within the lifetime of today's children?

[ToraToraTora]

the population will increase for now but ultimately fall back, we have reached peak child.

[ToraToraTora]

Oil will not be an issue, water is the key resource.

[Stickybottle]

When the finite resource of oil runs out, which drives all the world's agricultural machinery, produces fertilizer & facilitates transport, how are we going to feed them? Does anyone have even the vaguest of idea, & why does nobody seem to be planning for this eventuality which may not be far off, certainly within the lifetime of today's children?

A large proportion of people (especially in Africa) will be fed with mealworms and other insects

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL5N0ZT3YC20150715

[Peter Pedant]

this thread shows complete ignorance of the second agrarian revolution and the roleof Normal Bawlaugh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
and the role of the famous Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaugh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

read: - have fun boys and girls !

[Peter Pedant]

for those that find reading too onerous

Norman Borlaug fed the world

(and is cursed in come countries as they eat their rice for delivering them into the hands of big pharma)

[ToraToraTora]

Oil will become increasingly irrelevant in the coming years, the population will fall back, 100 years from now the population will be less than it is now.

[Khandro]

TTT //Oil will become increasingly irrelevant in the coming years, the population will fall back, 100 years from now the population will be less than it is now.//

Oil will become irrelevant because it will be non-existent and the population will drop through starvation.

[ToraToraTora]

it is estimated that at the current rate there is at least 50 years of oil left. The rate of use will slow and in 50 years oil will be largely irrelevant. There are alternatives for every application. Nothing to see here.

[Khandro]

//There are alternatives for every application.//

Well try to answer please - such as?

[ToraToraTora]

tell me the application and I'll tell you the alternative.

[William51]

It is going to be a problem. One answer is to find food solutions with Genetically Modified Engineering. It is safe but it is not very big at the moment because of the anti GME brigade.

[emmie]

Didn't Norman Bawlaugh invent dwarf wheat?

[emmie]

sorry that should be Norman Borlaugh...

[Khandro]

To highlight what I'm getting at: Behind my house is a field, small by modern standards; about the size of 10 football pitches. It gets ploughed by tractor & plough in about 1 hour or so, ditto for fertilizing & also seeding, later in the year, with a combine harvester the corn is separated from the straw which is baled.

The whole amount of man-hours is one man less than one day courtesy of diesel fuel.
If you go back to pre- oil & combustion engines, that same amount of food produced would, using horses, scythes & back-breaking labour , would have taken hundreds of hours. Multiply this on a country or world-wide scale & how are we going to do it - with electricity? & produced from what?

[Stickybottle]

Multiply this on a country or world-wide scale & how are we going to do it - with electricity? & produced from what?

Which planet have you been living on for the past 30+ years?
Do wind turbines and solar panels even register in your vocabulary?
Do you not see the advances in science going on around you almost daily?

[ToraToraTora]

Khandro, 10:13, all those vehicles will be replaced by electric vehicles powered by ever more creative ways of generating renewable electricity. At some point they'll get Nuclear Fusion to the point it's economically viable too. Where have you been for the last quarter of a century?

[Khandro]

//Where have you been for the last quarter of a century?//

I've been right here thinking about the future & the idea that wind turbines can make any more than a miniscule contribution to the amount of energy being used up on a daily world basis is risible, try working out the energy required first to manufacture, install & maintain them & you might get a glimpse of what I mean.

Solar panels and batteries require rare earth minerals which are going to be depleted before long - & are mostly being grabbed by the Chinese on a huge scale.

What I'm saying is an 'inconvenient truth' to which no one seems to have an answer.

[Khandro]

More plundering & dereliction of mother Earth is the best they can come up with, - a dystopian future looms for our children

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57234610

[emmie]

i sincerely hope not Khandro, having just finished reading 1984, his was truly a depiction of Big Brother having control completely.

[ToraToraTora]

khandro: "I've been right here thinking about the future & the idea that wind turbines can make any more than a miniscule contribution to the amount of energy being used up on a daily world basis is risible" - wind isn't the only power source
"try working out the energy required first to manufacture, install & maintain them & you might get a glimpse of what I mean." - I have and I do

"Solar panels and batteries require rare earth minerals which are going to be depleted before long - & are mostly being grabbed by the Chinese on a huge scale." - currently, battery tech is moving all the time.
"What I'm saying is an 'inconvenient truth' to which no one seems to have an answer." - the answers are all around you on multiple fronts. New Nuclear power stations are inevitable as are all manner of renewables. We got only 5% of our energy from fossil fuels last year.
Get your head out of.....the sand.