<Does Less Energy Mean More Farmers ?The Oil DrumDrumBeat: December 22, 2007>

160 comments on POLL: Theoildrum.com readers and food growing...

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Richard on December 24, 2007 - 10:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Growing your own food is the same argument as the food-miles concept.

I guess it all comes down to the following question:

The world is currently producing about 85m bpd and at peak oil. How much oil will the world produce when the US/Europe/Japan/Australia/etc see their first real famine, if ever?

a) 85 m bpd
b) 60 m bpd
c) 40 m bpd
d) 20 m bpd
e) 10 m bpd
f) 5 m bpd
g) Not in a hundred years

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FuturePundit on December 25, 2007 - 1:06am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes, I would like to hear at what world million bpd do large numbers of people start dying of calorie malnutrition in the United States or Britain or Italy?

I don't expect that to happen to substantial numbers in Western countries.

I also do not expect financial panics to prevent investments in substitutes for oil.

What I want to know: how many nuclear reactors would we need to build for fertilizer manufacture to replace the fertilizer we now make from natural gas?

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jewishfarmer on December 25, 2007 - 10:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That's not really the issue is it? People suffer from hunger and malnutrition in the US right now and there are plenty of calories. The real question is this - how many of us trust that the *economy* as we know it will be there, and that we will remain among the rich and priveleged people who always have enough money to buy food and medicine, shoes and dinner? The reality is that most ordinary people in the world are comparatively poor, and sometimes run into those hard choices - that the rich world mostly hasn't (and that mostly is an important note) is a product - of cheap energy. So if we choose not to have gardens, we are betting our lives that we're always going to be rich, that our pensions and kids will be there for us in old age, that we'll never experience an impoverishing medical crisis, and that we'll always have security. That seems like a risky bet to me personally.

Sharon

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