How will we feed 9 billion people?

[Tulloni]

People, especially the ruling elites, have been burying their heads in the sand for so long now. The fact is natural resources are pretty damned low, near depletion, and no one has the will or ability to act, at least those who need to act won't do it for a plethora of reasons. Denial being the most common one, ignorance and cowardice being other reasons, plus their refusal to get off their moral high horses.

I remember when I was younger you could buy a can of pop for 20p or 30p, now it costs a quid in many stores in London. Price inflation of goods has gone up massively due to overconsumption. People who reproduce a lot and consume without thinking may complain but at the end of the day you're adding to the problem.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Yes no doubt so called 'third world' poor nations will be hit the hardest, especially those with a massive population... But I honestly do not see the First World getting out of this either things being so interconnected with global economics and how the first world relies so heavily on the third world for resources and slave labor... erm - low cost employees - to make most goods.

I recall the false 1970's energy crises when the USA reached national level 'Peak Oil' - the rumor was (perhaps still is) that this was a false event that the military upon learning that oil was a finite resource decided to push the event closer to horde oil.

Everything since, with the oil imports has predominately been a way to drain the world of oil, thus when peak oil on a global scale is reached, the USA can be on top having 'saved' its own resources. All of that was geared toward beating the USSR in the cold war.

So it may be possible that the USA and other super powers can survive.... but I suspect that is a short term survival.

The USA does produce 60% of the world's food. So it can have a serious food shortage and the population of the USA can still stay comfortable. But is the USA willing to throw Europe under the bus (eats about 30% of the food the US produces)? Sure third world countries are readily cut out... while not socially acceptable, politically when the Big Crunch comes it will be tolerable.

Alternate energy only works if we reduce energy consumption. And the USA is going about it the wrong way. Such as how it produced alcohol, or hydrogen... its an unsustainable thing.

Solar still won't cut it, while there are vast improvements in PV cell technology, the materials used, rare earths and stuff are rare - expensive to mine, expensive and dirtier to process than oil.

The general public is unwilling to change its ways. Post energy crises USA people moved from the compact car to the SUV... so long term memory also appears to be a problem.

I believe that we still have time, if we seriously educate people and remind them they need to stop breeding like rabbits that enough people will either opt out of the gene pool on their own, or just stick with one child.

I may not be too late... but I suspect that the majority just ain't ready to give up what they have to reach forward to the future.

[davearoo]

People, especially the ruling elites, have been burying their heads in the sand for so long now. The fact is natural resources are pretty damned low, near depletion, and no one has the will or ability to act, at least those who need to act won't do it for a plethora of reasons. Denial being the most common one, ignorance and cowardice being other reasons, plus their refusal to get off their moral high horses.

It doesn't help that, through nearly all of human history, the cultural norm was to have as many children as possible. That was important because humans as a species have both a high birth rate and a high death rate. In primitive tribes, everyone was needed for breeding.

What changed things so radically in the past few centuries is, quite simply, modern medicine. The birth rate stayed the same, but the death rate dropped to very low levels. Obviously, the population exploded when that happened.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

^^^ That and abundance in food. The Chemical Fertilizer, Mechanized age lead to mass production of food, and without having to have many people to tend the fields.