Be afraid, Marco. Be very afraid.
by Jason GodeskyMarco’s very often outrageously wrong about a great many things, like when he said that Garden State sucked. But occasionally, he’s wrong in such a way that it gives me a good starting point to say something important, such as when he wrote, “Why I’m not scared of peak oil,” where Marco argues that Peak Oil will be a non-event, because if the price of oil goes up, we can simply cut our waste and all will be well. Marco’s also a fan of the book Freakonomics, which had a thing or two to say about Peak Oil, as well.
What most of these doomsday scenarios have gotten wrong is the fundamental idea of economics: people respond to incentives. If the price of a good goes up, people demand less of it, the companies that make it figure out how to make more of it, and everyone tries to figure out how to produce substitutes for it. Add to that the march of technological innovation (like the green revolution, birth control, etc.). The end result: markets figure out how to deal with problems of supply and demand.
Which is exactly the situation with oil right now. I don’t know much about world oil reserves. I’m not even necessarily arguing with their facts about how much the output from existing oil fields is going to decline, or that world demand for oil is increasing. But these changes in supply and demand are slow and gradual — a few percent each year. Markets have a way with dealing with situations like this: prices rise a little bit. That is not a catastrophe, it is a message that some things that used to be worth doing at low oil prices are no longer worth doing. Some people will switch from SUVs to hybrids, for instance. Maybe we’ll be willing to build some nuclear power plants, or it will become worth it to put solar panels on more houses.
It’s easy to see where Marco’s influences are coming from: cornucopians. But, as Dmitry Podborits wrote in, “On Why High IQ Fails Us, The Freakonomics of Peak Oil, and Horse Breeding, Manhattan Style“:
Of course markets will attempt (as they have been attempting for a long time, without success) to find substitutes within the same basic economic structure. … However, is there a physical law stating that an adequate substitute, fitting into any existing infrastructure and cost structure, and satisfying the needs of any living arrangement, has to exist? … So, if we are not lucky enough to find a sufficient replacement for cheap oil, what will our response be? How will we, so to speak, respond to incentives?
Well, as Kunstler euphemistically puts it, “we will have to make other arrangements.” This will basically mean that the society will change its very fabric and structure in response to the post-cheap oil circumstances. … For example, one of the “responses to incentives” can be described as “making do with less”, as in malnutrition or starvation. … Another response under the same circumstances can be described as “going to war”. … Yet another response can be described as “mass migration away from the areas that have become uninhabitable, into the still habitable areas whose longtime residents would not be too happy to share their own resources with the newcomers”. … And yet another response could be described as “reorganizing the economy around local food production”.
Of course, there could be still other arrangements including elements of several or all of the previous four, plus some other yet unmentioned. However, they all would reflect “the new equilibrium” of the post-cheap oil world.
Or, the market always finds a way. The cornucopians, though, suffer a certain lack of imagination when it comes to considerations of what such a “way” might entail. As Tainter put it, “collapse is an economizing process.” Freakonomics emphasizes the modesty of the depletion rate as “a few percent each year.” But even a modest depletion rate can result in halving production in a decade or less. If oil prices continue to rise, we’ll first see recession, and then we’ll see depression, and then we’ll see collapse.
Marco’s plan of simply cutting waste can–and will–happen, in the recession and depression phases. Waste has already been taken into account; it’s one of Greer’s basic variables for understanding catabolic collapse, in “How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse.” [PDF] He defines the maintenance production of a society as M(c) = W(p) + W(c). Marco is discussing W(c), or the waste of capital, and only the most superfluous levels of it. Greer writes:
Waste (W) consists of all factors that have been incorporated into the society’s flows of energy and material, and exploited to the point that they are incapable of further use. Materials used or converted into pollutants, tools and laborers at the end of their useful lives, and information garbled or lost, all become waste.
Waste can never be entirely eliminated, but every society’s first move in such a crisis is to minimize waste as much as possible. We’ll no doubt do the same. Marco’s suggestons are good ones:
Maybe the “collapse of society” will force office buildings to install windows that can open to let in fresh air and sunlight for free. Maybe business people will stop flying around constantly in an age where we can transmit live, high-resolution video across the world using commodity hardware. Maybe we’ll have to endure 80-degree houses in the summer. Maybe the simplest products won’t be able to keep all 6 layers of plastic packaging. Or maybe we’ll have to turn our computers off at night and wait an extra 45 seconds in the morning for them to start.
It will be a start, and it will become necessary as depletion continues. But then–depletion continues, and even those measures are not sufficient. That is the reality of Peak Oil that Marco’s analysis completely misses. We’re not talking about oil production suddenly dropping and staying low, we’re talking about its gradual extinction. We will need to make our civilization completely independent of fossil fuels over the next century, and it’s unclear if anything exists which can provide that much energy.
That means, we’ll need to run our civilization on less energy. That means less complexity. And that means the self-reinforcing cycle of catabolic collapse that Greer discusses.
A society that uses resources beyond replenishment rate (d(R)/r(R) > 1), when production of new capital falls short of maintenance needs, risks a depletion crisis in which key features of a maintenance crisis are amplified by the impact of depletion on production. As M(p) exceeds C(p) and capital can no longer be maintained, it is converted to waste and unavailable for use. Since depletion requires progressively greater investments of capital in production, the loss of capital affects production more seriously than in an equivalent maintenance crisis. Meanwhile further production, even at a diminished rate, requires further use of depleted resources, exacerbating the impact of depletion and the need for increased capital to maintain production. With demand for capital rising as the supply of capital falls, C(p) tends to decrease faster than M(p) and perpetuate the crisis. The result is a catabolic cycle, a self-reinforcing process in which C(p) stays below M(p) while both decline. Catabolic cycles may occur in maintenance crises if the gap between C(p) and M(p) is large enough, but tend to be self-limiting in such cases. In depletion crises, by contrast, catabolic cycles can proceed to catabolic collapse, in which C(p) approaches zero and most of a society’s capital is converted to waste.
…
Any society that displays broad increases in most measures of capital production coupled with signs of serious depletion of key resources, in particular, may be considered a potential candidate for catabolic collapse.
There’s a chance we might escape Peak Oil, as I argued in my most recent thesis. It’s a slim chance, growing ever more slim all the time, but it’s the kind of miracle that’s saved us before. Banking on miracles may not sound like a solid bet to many of you, but at this point, it’s really all we have left. Might not have always been this way, but we elected Reagan instead. Now it’s morning in America again!
My title notwithstanding, this is not necessarily something to be afraid of. Whether collapse comes from peak oil or some other factor, such as environmental problems, the current state of our complexity means that the collapse of our civilization is imminent. That entails a great deal of suffering, but it also entails an opportunity the likes of which no civilized person has ever had. For the first time in 10,000 years, our future really is our own to make as we will. Once the collapse is done, we will no longer be enthralled by the deterministic consequences of our distant ancestors, and we will finally have the opportunity to make our lives into what we want them to be.
So, I guess I’m not afraid of Peak Oil, either–just for all the precisely opposite reasons.
Haha. Any chance we can get a better permalink for this one? I’ll be linking people to an article about the adaptability of the markets vis-a-vis waste and it’s going to be “http://anthropik.com/2005/12/be-afraid-marco-be-very-afraid” showing up on their screen.
Good article, and a good expansion on what Jeff Vail wrote somewhere about the adaptability of markets. His archives seem to be broken at the moment, and I don’t recall exactly the title of the article, so no link at the moment. Oh well.
-Devin
Comment by Devin — 5 December 2005 @ 4:23 PM
It is a permalink, just an ugly one. It won’t be changing, but I fear name conflicts with anythng less.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 December 2005 @ 4:45 PM
A comment from Dimitry’s article worth repeating, though it didn’t fit into the article:
Actually, even that’s not so “roguish.” Applying economic analysis to things other than money and markets is something I’ve been reading for years.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 December 2005 @ 5:19 PM
I wonder about the necessity of peak oil causing dieoff. If people got together and they farmed the land together, they could feed themselves. We have a ridiculous food surplus now. And reports show that organic agriculture could feed the world. We would just have to replace oil energy with human energy if the agribusinesses would allow it. And cut out a lot of the complexities. However, could this be done fast enough in a fast and precipitous situation to last the 40 days it takes to get food? Would people be able to have water? Or would the gradual decline allow this to happen, or possibly cause resistance among those who still want their property? Is it more the interruption than they ability to deal with it affect die off more?
Water treatment is something else though. I don’t know how we would deal with that. How did the agriculturalists before deal with it?
Also, civilization does not just involve industrialized nations. Third world countries might have a lot less impact. A lot of people live in agrarian settings. Sweatshop cities would be affected. But most other people would not. I think it’s not considering the majority of people that don’t live the kind of lifestyle that we do. And they aren’t dependent on the things we are.
Comment by planetwarming — 5 December 2005 @ 6:40 PM
No way could organic agriculture ever feed everyone, but more to the point, the “get together and farm” alternative is thwarted by the fact that the very same Great Plains that produce so much of the world’s grain supply are arable now only thanks to fertilizers made from natural gas and petrochemicals. Without those fertilizers, the Great Plains would be a desert.
See, monoculture bleeds the soil. In their evolutionary context, plants co-evolve to depend on one another. What one plants puts into the soil as waste, another plant takes up as food. Monoculture kills the soil because they’re all taking out the same nutrients, and putting in the same wastes. Same thing as locking yourself in a garage and running your car, which we can immediately recognize as suicidal.
Now that we’ve done that for so long, the Great Plains can no longer support any kind of agriculture on its own. It needs massive inputs, inputs that require petroleum and an industrial infrastructure. So Kunstler’s agrarian dream is impossible.
What will this mean for the Third World? First, the break down of post-colonial power structures, without industrial intervention to prop them up. These regions are vastly overpopulated, as part of the West’s neocolonial mechanism of creating dependence. They cannot support anything close to their standing populations. This will lead to genocide and warfare.
There are some regions where agriculture may be viable, but they are few and far between. Most of the world is in the Great Plains’ boat–agriculture has been practiced there for so long, that agriculture can no longer be practiced there without intensive help. Climate change will continue for several decades after civilization collapses, and that will make agriculture even more difficult. The chaos of the fall of the West will make the effort necessary extremely unappealing.
The caliphate may continue to exist, but it will have to come down to something near the level of a loose tribal confederation. China and India will collapse just like the U.S.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 December 2005 @ 6:51 PM
A lot of what you say makes sense.
With the effect on the Third World- I contend that a lot of the Great Plains causes more poverty by invading their markets with our cheap food. I don’t have specific numbers though. There are regions that people would have to move to and out of. Africa is overpopulating, and that will cause starvation of the farmers who lose their livelihood. Have you read about “Two Myths of Poverty in the World” or whatever its called by Vandana Shiva. It seems you agree. But I think they might be able to go back, those who have, and not cause that much craziness. I don’t understand how you say all of the Third World is dependent on us and therefore allowed to overpopulate. They seem pretty agricultural to me. Like in Africa. They have Millet and Rice. They exchange a little in marketplaces but not that much. Maybe, I might look at this further. It is really overpopulating bad if you have seen that World Population Growth video. A lot of them can just go back to their plows too. More people working the same land. They are doing it organically. Most of them I think are subsistence farmers. I don’t know how much the Great Plains is responsible for and how many people could feed themselves with their own land if the agribusinesses and other corporations would let them.
Great Plains would be a prairie, not a desert. I would research organic agriculture in the Great Plains, but my modem is being really slow.
Google “organic agriculture can feed the world.” I have read that there is higher yield even, but I don’t know if it was for the Great Plains. That might be different and the unique stressful factors you say that it has may make it have lower. I’m pretty sure there is enough arable land for each person though. I have read that an acre of permaculture could feed someone. No, I don’t have a source for that.
I don’t know what caliphate is.
And I still don’t see how Marco is disproven. I wonder the same thing myself. We will cut down a lot more. I don’t see it collapsing so suddenly. We will reduce the unnecessities. And the people in labor of unnecessities would hopefully be allowed to change their livelihood to the necessities.
By the way, I want to be a primitivist. I am just wondering and thinking about these things theoretically. And of course, I don’t want this dieoff to have to happen. I mean, death will increase naturally when we overshoot. But not a mass-scale dieoff.
Comment by planetwarming — 5 December 2005 @ 8:13 PM
The Great Plains would have been a prairie, just like it was before, if it weren’t for the past few centuries of agriculture. The Fertile Crescent was once fertile, and the Middle East was once a prairie. You see there the long-term effects of agriculture. The “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s was precisely the first steps of that desertification. The soil is still long dead, it’s just covered in a few feet of petrochemical fertilizer.
Caliphate–rule by the caliph, the heirs of Muhammed. Al-Qa’ida’s goal is to bring down the post-colonial dictatorships that currently rule the Middle East, and replace it with a restored caliphate by 2013. So far, everything’s on schedule, so we’ll see. If they manage to succeed–and it’s looking pretty good for them–then there will be a caliphate ruling the Middle East as this all unfolds. Given the primitivist bent of Wahhabit (primitivist in the theological sense), and their general preference for all things pre-modern, they have a good chance of surviving peak oil, though they’ll lose a great deal of their control in the process.
Strictly speaking, I didn’t disprove Marco at all. I just put it into a perspective he wouldn’t agree with. Marco thinks if we cut waste, then nothing will happen. I’m saying that as this unfolds, we’re going to have to cut our waste, but even that will only buy us a little bit more time.
As for organic agriculture feeding the world, yes, such claims have been made. They universally neglect such things as the kind of vast reduction of arable land that would take place without using intensive agriculture, and thus, the much reduced land area that is viable for organic agriculture. It also neglects that organic agriculture by definition has lower yields per acre. Permaculture suffers similar problems: lower yield per acre, and fewer acres that are suitable. They’re both great as individual choices, but they’re both impossible as global strategies.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 December 2005 @ 10:33 PM
Time that is already accounted for in our predictions. So says SEELE!
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 5 December 2005 @ 11:36 PM
Jason: You say:
Who is “everyone�? We all seem to be aware that neither industrial nor organic agriculture can feed the current or projected world population. This means that in the future the human population will be smaller. If the collapse kills at least 98% but leaves enough bio-diversity and resources optimistically 50 – 200 million of us could enjoy a hunter-gatherer live style. Organic agriculture and permaculture and a simple life style might be able to sustainable support several billion. If there is a choice it’s a question of values.
Comment by Bob Harrison — 6 December 2005 @ 12:09 AM
Planetwarming mentioned several posts ago sustainable agriculture, solar energy has been brought up in prior comments, nuclear energy, and marco mentioned the abilities of the capitalistic system to handle its problems. Whenever someone mentions alternatives and substitutes, you guys systematically trot out arguments against them. Almost as if you believe we shouldn’t even bother with these.
Not that I don’t agree with your ideas about surviving the next 100 years. I think primitivism is a great idea. But wouldn’t it be best to have an entire ecology of strategies? By that I mean, wouldn’t it be good to have a few people developing nuclear, a few solar, a few choosing to be less energy dependent, a few resorting to primitivism, and a few maintaining the capitalistic system of prices? That way if one fails, another may survive to maintain our species. This is the same strategy our own ecosystem is based on - diversity. We should embrace multiple strategies instead of being dogmatic about one.
Great blog by the way, makes you think.
Comment by Lope — 6 December 2005 @ 12:54 AM
I tend to think that organic agriculture *could* feed everyone–OK, well at least the current population of the earth–in a sustainable fashion. IF we had about 50 years of perfect cooperation, single-minded global effort and good luck to implement a small scale/distributed/permaculture type system to build soil worldwide. OK, so I guess that means that Jason is right: there is no way that organic agriculture could feed everyone.
I had a comment that was more pertinent to the Peak Oil topic, but as I’ve been a more than a bit busy lately I just posted it to jeffvail.net so that there would be a bit of new content. To sum up: one possible “solution” to peak oil scares me a lot more than peak oil does: fusion.
Comment by Jeff Vail — 6 December 2005 @ 12:57 AM
I’m not so sure the Great Plains were ever a good place for agriculture, and the flatness of the land there is one factor that may be more important than most people think.
From what I’ve read about the Great Plains, they were really not so great for planting. All that grass had roots several feet deep that had to be “busted.” The soil resulting wasn’t that great. Initially, acreage could simply be acqired in an amount to make up for this. Ranching worked pretty well of course.
What I saw happen to farming in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s might be more significant. I grew up in a farming town in the low, rolling hills of Southwest Ohio. Its inherent suitablity for growing things was and is an order of magnitude better than the Great Plains.
In the late ’70’s, huge farm machinery started to become available. This stuff could handle thousands of acres in the windows of time when it was needed. Interest rates were low. Salesmanship was high. So, all the farmers bought these combines, etc., that were really only economic for thousands of acres.
Those gently rolling hills mean that farms are only a few hundred acres, and individual fields are of course smaller than that.
It might have made sense if they’d co-oped and bought one for several farms. This being the virtual seat of individualist-Republicanism, that was not going to happen. So each farmer took on loans for 5,000 of acres worth of equipment for his 500 acre farm (orders of magnitude, not actual figures).
When interest rates spiked in the early ’80’s, yields were going up and commodity prices were going down. Every year they borrowed to pay for seed and other supplies for the next year’s crop, so even if their equipment loans were fixed their overall debt became a whole lot more expensive. Many mortgaged the equipmnet along with the land every year for these loans. This was also when real lending standards still applied. The result was that for buying too much equipment many lost their farms.
Remember “Farm Aid?” That’s what was happening there.
So eventually farming migrated to areas where fields could be big enough to make the equipment make sense.
I think a large part of the large-scale farming movement was simply a matter of consolidation and sizing farms to fit equipment. With fertilizers, topography became more important than soil.
Again, the Great Plains really aren’t great farmland. The Ohio Valley, and upstate New York (where James Kunstler lives) are. It’s hard for me, or I suspect Kunstler, to step away from that fact. Dieoff and optimism must be informed by that perspective. In other words, I’m not so worried about dieoff since I live and grew up amongst some of the best lands in the world. People in Phoenix might be screwed, but keep in mind where any individual author lives.
Comment by Sam — 6 December 2005 @ 4:23 AM
Once upon a time, organic agriculture might have supported billions. But in that space of time, we’ve had the Green Revolution–the phenomenon in the 70s and 80s that Sam describes above–which has increased yields sufficiently to generate a population of 6.5 billion people. In the course of that, it’s depleted much of the land that might otherwise have been suitable for organic agriculture. That’s where I think so many of our estimates go awry. We see those amber waves of grain and think, if they’re so fertile now, why can’t we grow farms there organically? Because they’re only fertile thanks to oil; without oil, it would already be a desert.
That’s because it’s the same few alternatives brought up over and over again, which aren’t solutions at all. The problem is the complacency that such “alternatives” engender. For example, Marco argues that peak oil will be a non-event because we can just cut our waste. But cutting our waste is a stop-gap at best. Giuli only eats organic food, and I think that’s great (if you can afford it), but we can’t delude ourselves that organic food will ever feed 6.5 billion people.
What’s more, these “solutions” are intended to keep our servitude going. Not only are they doomed to fail, but they’re aimed at making sure that our lives don’t improve, and we get to maintain all the drudgery and oppression of civilized life.
I’m in the Ohio River Valley, too: Pittsburgh. And there’s some great farmland north of here, but even that would be reclaimed by forest in short order without mechanized machinery. Upstate NY and the Ohio Valley are great places for organic agriculture, and I expect that’s what people in those regions will turn to. But that doesn’t work long-term without a market, so with their tight-knit communities, they’ll eventually scale down into horticultural villages.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 December 2005 @ 10:26 AM
Out of curiosity, what’s the situation with the Amish? They’re farmers and have been here for at least 200 years. They’re also a fairly insular population. Have they started having problems with depleted soil, or do they use petro fertilizers? Have they expanded their land at all, or do they lose enough people to the mainstream for population growth to not be a problem for their community? How long does it take before farming depletes the soil to the point where you can’t farm it anymore without the help of oil? Does crop rotation buy you any time?
Comment by Raku — 6 December 2005 @ 12:19 PM
Crop rotation was invented precisely to alleviate this problem, but while it does slow the prcoess, it doesn’t stop it entirely.
The Amish have been forced to make certain “compromises,” recently. See, “Stewards of the Land: Amish Farming Techniques, Part I.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 December 2005 @ 12:28 PM
It sounds like the change in methods was due to the farmers’ switching from livestock/grain farming to produce farming, maybe to support the increased costs of their new farm equipment? What if they had continued farming the way they were? Would it have been sustainable? Probably a moot point, as external pressures would have likely forced them to increase complexity eventually.
Comment by Raku — 6 December 2005 @ 1:29 PM
I would say no, but they would take longer to kill themselves off than the Green Revolution. Sustainable over a slightly longer timeline, but still a short one.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 December 2005 @ 2:26 PM
It was an interesting start to the article:
The Amish have always viewed farming as the ideal occupation for a number of reasons. They feel that working the land brings them into closer union with the God who created it, and bonds their families as they labor together in the fields.
Comment by Raku — 6 December 2005 @ 2:38 PM
Sam wrote:
I’m not so sure the Great Plains were ever a good place for agriculture, and the flatness of the land there is one factor that may be more important than most people think.
You’re right. Most of the Plains were not prairie, but steppe, which is best noted for being arid. Today, most agriculture there is watered by pumps drawing on the Oglalla Aquifer, not rain or river water as would be necessary for a “primitive” agric. system. That’s why, even in Native times, it was largely unpopulated until the Spanish introduced horses in the 15th C; only roaming hunter-gathering bands could survive there. The only population concentrations in that area before then were along the river valleys, where farming peoples such as the Arikara and Hidatsa had small collections of villages. Many of those were wiped out by disease prior to the heyday of the Plains horse culture, which would’ve itself been short-lived even without US Army interference b/c it was unsustainable.
Similar ecosystems worldwide have never supported significant agriculture. Typically, they support pastoral societies that depend on outside agricultural societies for trade and other elements of their survival — Eurasian steppe peoples linked to China & the Mid East; Native American tribes linked to eastern woodland and river peoples; etc.
Comment by Jay Denari — 7 December 2005 @ 2:44 PM
Right. Again, I think the real attraction of the Great Plains for agriculture was that you could assemble farms and fields big enough to make the giant farm equipment really worthwhile. The miracles of modern chemistry could make things grow.
Which is why I don’t really agree that all formerly good soil is depleted to nothing. I can drive 10 minutes from my relatively near-ring suburb and see (and work with a CSA) land that’s been farmed for a couple centuries and still produces very yummy, robust organic veggies. With the farm I’m thinking of, you could run a 16-row combine about 50 feet before you’d have to turn it around, though, so factory farming was never gonna happen there.
Comment by Sam — 7 December 2005 @ 5:22 PM
Sounds like a good place for a permaculture garden. But certainly not sufficent to maintain a civilization.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 8 December 2005 @ 11:33 AM
You again, Benjamin. Cool.
I honestly don’t know how the numbers would work out. I’m pretty confident India, China, and most of Africa are truly screwed, but then I know even less about their food supply than I do ours.
So, just sticking to the US, maybe it’s possible for us to feed ourselves.
I’ve been implicitly proposing the following points:
- Organic methods may be able to out-produce “factory” methods
- The Great Plains and California’s Inland Empire really aren’t and never were inherently good farmland
- There is a lot of inherently good farmland in the United States
- It’s entirely possible that the inherently good stuff is still in pretty good shape, since it was simply unsuitable for the really destructive farming methods - too hilly for the big machines, so couldn’t be assembled into big enough farms to make all those “inputs” viable. Sure they’ve had chemicals and GMO’s, but not to the extent of the big places.
- While organic farming still depletes soil, it’s over a long perid, like centuries, or at least many decades. This is assuming appropriate crop rotation.
- An appropriate program of fallowing might let it rejuvenate completely
- It’s possible that wise farming methods on good land could be so much more productive that we could support ourselves.
I don’t know if there’s enough good land or if good farming methods can be productive enough. I don’t know if it’s really knowable (what diet would you assume, which land would you consider “good,” what yields could you really get?) I have a feeling we’ll find out soon.
Comment by Sam — 8 December 2005 @ 2:42 PM
Sam,
Just for your information archives…
Posted over at Ishcon
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 8 December 2005 @ 2:54 PM
Nothing out produces agriculture. That’s why we use it. Unfortunately that production comes at a terrible cost of efficency. Ten callories in for every one out. Organic farming couldn’t support the current population of the US, especially no in it’s current distribution. I.E. anyone living in a city is dead.
True. Especially not anymore.
Not good for mass production, only good for relatively small gardens. Also, the climate change might be sufficent to change what is good farmland. It’s hard to predict that kind of stuff, too specific. General trends can be predicted with a fair amount of accuracy (Jules Verne predicted everything from fax machines to tanks, although the metal clothing wasn’t quite on target, but we still wear a lot of synthetic fabrics….).
It’s also far from the population centers, which is why it’s still any good. Shipping food is very energy intensive. No oil means we’ll need to do some other way. Horsepower anyone?
Rather be sustainable indefinitely than for only a couple decades.
What do we eat until then?
Still not as productive as factory farming techniques, that’s why we use them. And the shipping issues. And we still have other issues in question, including organization, weather, and water. Don’t forget, we’re running out of fresh water, too. In fact, several countries have already gone to war over it.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 8 December 2005 @ 6:12 PM