The Oil Drum

231 comments on More Thoughts on Relocalization

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beggar on January 30, 2008 - 10:41am

In relationship to this, check out Monbiot's article here:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/29/6704/

Monbiot points out that the consumption of the wealthy -- and he also chooses excessive meat-eating as an example -- is a greater threat to the world in many ways than the burgeoning population, which is also a very real problem.

It is precisely this which makes me say, once again, that it does little good to talk about the future of agriculture in with exclusive regard to peak oil, without also carrying on an extensive conversation about environmental ethics, consumption and population ethics, and geopolitics and resource war.

Resource War is, in my opinion, the biggest driving force in the politics of the USA right now. All other issues will be addressed only as crises which are used to concentrate power in order to better conduct the Resource War. (This includes the current economic crisis, IMHO.) Democrats are as enmeshed in this as Republicans, obviously.

Any remaining Future Farmers of America will live in chaotic times, to say the least.

The future of agriculture is no more stable or predictable than thew future of our species.

Agriculture is dominated by men (note: men!) with primitive (bellicose) emotions and strange medieval concepts of themselves as having the Divine Rights of Kings, and who mistake themselves for gods because of our temporary access to god-like technology.

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Jason Bradford on January 30, 2008 - 12:05pm

By contrast, the demographics of young, small-scale farmers includes many women. Around here small farmers are about 50:50 female:male I'd guess.

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ccpo on January 30, 2008 - 12:38pm

Monbiot points out that the consumption of the wealthy -- and he also chooses excessive meat-eating as an example -- is a greater threat to the world in many ways than the burgeoning population, which is also a very real problem.

It is precisely this which makes me say, once again, that it does little good to talk about the future of agriculture in with exclusive regard to peak oil, without also carrying on an extensive conversation about environmental ethics, consumption and population ethics, and geopolitics and resource war.

I wrote this on another site regarding a different topic (I think the numbers are correct... at least, I hope they are.):

A typical American uses the energy equivalent of almost 16 times that of, say, an African. Extrapolate that out with some simple math:

310,00,000 Americans x 16 (third world equivalents) = 4,960,000,000 people.

That's right. 4,960,000,000 Africans could live on what America lives on. Add in Europe? Japan? Korea? You're looking at another 8 or 9 billion.

Africa is not the problem. Developed nations are the problem. That, and that others, quite naturally, want to live how we live. This is impossible. Let us do the numbers.

6.6 billion divided by 310 million = 21.29. 20,000,000 (US daily consumption of oil) x 21.29 = 425,806,000 mb/d.