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133 comments on So let's talk about population

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MicroHydro on December 20, 2005 - 3:57am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Actual bbl/capita peaked in 1979.  The penultimate graph is not a good reflection of what actually occured.

Total world fish catch peaked 1989.

Total world grain production peaked 2000.

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Stuart Staniford on December 20, 2005 - 4:01am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Correct - the Hubbert model only gets production right to within 10-15%, and only illustrates the general trend - I don't claim it gets details right.  In particular, it doesn't get the structural break in the world production that occurred in the 1970s.
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Luis de Sousa on December 20, 2005 - 4:26am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hi MicroMan, can you please reference that?
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ab3 on December 20, 2005 - 8:36am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Albert Bartlett, physics professor emeritus at Univ. of Colorado in Boulder, is the main person who's publicized this. You can see it in his Physics Today article from July 2004. It's online at:

http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~pel/environment/population_pt04.html

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ab3 on December 20, 2005 - 8:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The Bartlett reference is for the per capita oil production peak, not the fish and grain peaks.
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nulinegvgv on December 20, 2005 - 9:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
happy hunting.

http://faostat.fao.org/

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SqueakyRat on December 20, 2005 - 7:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for the interesting link. The FAO stats for total world fishing production appear not to show a peak: for 2003, the last year in their series, they have production at over 135 million metric tons, the highest ever.
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SqueakyRat on December 20, 2005 - 7:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Not a peak in per capita fish production, either.
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Mike A on December 20, 2005 - 4:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Seconded. I'd love to see some links/references especially any with graphs, thats quite amazing (and concerning).
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creg on December 20, 2005 - 9:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2005/10/05/  
Grain Yields Rise, But No Respite for the Hungry

grain In 2004, global grain production broke 2 billion tons for the first time in history, marking a 9-percent increase from the 2003 level. Also in 2004, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of hungry people around the world increased for the first time since 1970. Starvation now kills more than 5 million children each year.

The biggest factor behind this record grain production in 2004 was an increase in average yields: with the same amount of hectares for planting, farmers were able to harvest more crops. However, most people go hungry not because of a global food shortage but because they are too poor to buy food or to obtain the land, water, and other resources needed to produce it.

Vital Signs                          
This is a pdf file or purchase. 96 to 03 leveling off re grain production. 85 peak per person, but fairly level. Of concern is grain stocks decreasing since 60, possibly by choice.   The tractor, irrigation, chemical fertilizeres/pesticides/herbicides and some hybrid grains, particularily rice are how we have matched hyper-expotiental growth. All these are so oil/gas dependant. The 2005 grain increase was a good year probably due to weather ,good in the right places.

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Magnus Redin on December 20, 2005 - 11:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And manny are so poor due to civil war and diktatorships.

One of the largest problems is not peak oil making fuel for growing food scarse in itself but the scarsity making it easier to start conflicts. Wars eat resources and is in the way for distribution and trade and that gives starvation.

The political risks worry me more then the physical problems.

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creg on December 20, 2005 - 11:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Peak farmland probably occurred several years ago. , and a good deal of this is marginal cropland; only  usable with irrigation- a high energy user,even with water readily available. Developement is eating up a lot of farmland. I think irrigation is way underrated in importance.
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133 comments on So let's talk about population

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