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GMO Quarterly Letter: Grantham On The Coming "Peak Everything" Disaster
It was just three short months ago that Jeremy Grantham was spewing Malthusian fire and brimstone. He did so, however, from a broadly generalist perspective. Today, the head of GMO has released his second follow up in the "peak everything" series which is sure to provoke yet another round of bickering and debate between the disciples and nemeses of the logarithmic function and its applications in the real world. Among the key topic dissected this time are ongoing resource depletion and soil erosion. To wit: "As the population continues to grow, we will be stressed by recurrent shortages of hydrocarbons, metals, water, and, especially, fertilizer. Our global agriculture, though, will clearly bear the greatest stresses. It may have the responsibility for feeding an extra two to three billion mouths, an increase of 30% to 40% in just 40 years. The availability of the highest quality land will almost certainly continue to shrink slowly, and the quality of typical arable soil will continue to slowly decline globally due to erosion despite increased efforts to prevent it. This puts a huge burden on increasing productivity...Here, the discussion is about the pain and time involved in getting to long-term sustainability as well as trying to separate the merely irritating from the real, often surreptitious, threats to the long-term viability of our current affluent but reckless society. The moral however, is clear. As Jim Rogers likes to say: be a farmer not a banker – the world needs good farmers!"
Below is Grantham's thesis summary:
Summary
- We humans have the brains and the means to reach real planetary sustainability. The problem is with us and our focus on short-term growth and pro ts, which is likely to cause suffering on a vast scale. With foresight and thoughtful planning, this suffering is completely avoidable.
- Although we will have energy problems with peak oil, this is probably an area where human ingenuity will indeed eventually triumph and in 50 years we will have muddled through well enough, despite price problems along the way.
- Shortages of metals and fresh water will each cause severe problems, but in the end we will adjust our behavior enough to be merely irritated rather than threatened, although in the case of metals, the pressure from shortages and higher prices will slowly increase forever.
- Running out completely of potassium (potash) and phosphorus (phosphates) and eroding our soils are the real long-term problems we face. Their total or nearly total depletion would make it impossible to feed the 10 billion people expected 50 years from now.
- Potassium and phosphorus are necessary for all life; they can not be manufactured and cannot be substituted for. We depend on finite mined resources that are very unevenly scattered around the world.
- Globally, soil is eroding at a rate that is several times that of the natural replacement rate. It is probable, although not certain, that the U.S. is still losing ground. The world as a whole certainly is.
- In particular, a significant number of poor countries found mostly in Africa and Asia will almost certainly suffer from increasing malnutrition and starvation. The possibility of foreign assistance on the scale required seems remote.
- The many stresses on agriculture will be exacerbated at least slightly by increasing temperatures, and severely by increased weather instability, especially more frequent and severe droughts and floods.
- Capitalism, despite its magnificent virtues in the short term– above all, its ability to adjust to changing conditions – has several weaknesses that affect this issue.
- It cannot deal with the tragedy of the commons, e.g., overfishing, collective soil erosion, and air contamination.
- The finiteness of natural resources is simply ignored, and pricing is based entirely on short-term supply and demand.
- More generally, because of the use of very high discount rates, modern capitalism attributes no material cost to damage that occurs far into the future. Our grandchildren and the problems they will face because of a warming planet with increasing weather instability and, particularly, with resource shortages, have, to the standard capitalist approach, no material present value.
And so on. Much more inside.
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Another cheap example of US propaganda.
My thesis? Uh no. Mere statements of facts.
What are you speaking about? I stated no example of generosity.
I simply stated that Indians hunted short hours when the game was plentiful and long hours when the game was scarce. It is not a greed based system. How is it generosity?
Wars are irrelevant. Wars consume resources and people with no resources can not go to war.
When the expansionist scheme is achieved, that is all the resources are captured,there is no more rationale for wars other than protection from possible removal of captured resources. It changes all the game.
But the best line is the last: human beings are able to live outside a natural environment? Since when? I missed that event that would be indeed be key to the current pattern of things.
Until that moment, protecting the environment that sustains you is self-preservation.
WTF does U.S. propaganda have to do with basic, primary human instincts?
And who said anything about humans living outside a natural environment?
As I think about it, though, it's 101 outside and I am sitting in 76 degree un-natural comfort ;-).
The concept here, my friend, is universality and our individual abilities to balance survival of self/family/tribe to survival of species.
When you are hungry right now, you don't much care about polluting the stream and over-hunting. Conceptually, you may know it's bad in the long run, but you are happy to let that be a problem for another day.
That same sentiment applies on a macro level to human social systems. If you want more laughs today, watch the breaking news from Washington's budget debates.
Who? You in the last line as I showed it.
Human beings are so far not dissociated from their environment and maintaining/preserving that environment is self preservation.
US propaganda has it that human nature is sumed up to greed.
Survival of the species does not exist or has not been exhibited so far. Only exists or has been exhibited so far individual survival.
Hunger has nothing to do with greed. Hunger is what drives human people to go and quest for food.
Etc...
So yes, much US propaganda.
Let me guess. English is not your first language, right?
Yeah,
The need system of the anarchists.
When the population is low enough, the species will take another look at it.
Don't watch CNBS to interpret the markets and don't listen to the MSM to predict the weather. The term "weather instability" is redundant. Weather is never stable, and never will be stable. To understand this, study history. Let's take the native Americans for an example. Their plight will also underscore my previous comments. It was their success which led to the following collapse:
That's enough, you get the point. This has all happened before, but we only view it in the context of our own times so we don't see the pattern. The only thing that is different this time is the scale of things. This collapse is inevitable because our success in once again building a tower of Babel makes it inevitable. Billions will die, and that will fix everything. The next society will be built on some other source of energy and they will mourn us about as much as Renissance Venice mourned their Roman ancestors. Everyone blames it on the weather or "barbarians" but it is our human nature that makes it inevitable. So you can release yourself from the burden of your fears. Enjoy the life you have, it is a good one.
Comparison to the past is fundamentally flawed. It is indeed US citizen natue to try to compare things biasedly to dilute their responsibility but the following was known and acknowledged by the FF themselves:
scarcity vs abundance.
The US world order has installed itself in a very specific period of human history, the access to abundance.
No other world order has benefited from abundance, an issue once again well known and reported by the FF themselves.
And again, it is US citizen nature to try to make the situation of a guy robbing a loaf of bread from a dying man in a gulag the same as a well off guy living lavishly robbing a loaf of bread from a dying man.
One answers to self preservation while the other is commanded by greed.
Greed and self preservation, no matter how hard the US propaganda has tried to paint them as similar, are two different things.
How do we pare down to 2 billion sustainable people on earth ?
Dick Cheney knows how !
That's only half the problem. The other half is how do you do it in a period of 5 years.
There ain't gonna be no volunteers, and 20 year olds are not going to stop procreating.
Nor-Plant Cross-Bow.
or Monsanto Sterility Crops with a human infertility gene implanted in every plant genome. Wipes out your entire customer base in less than 2 generations.
I like my eugenics to be discretely targetable. No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, pun intended.
Until greed is purged from humans---you can just forget everything. I hate being a part of the problem---but it's getting to the point of fuck everyone else it's all me now. I guess that's one part of 'trickle down' that actually made it to the bottom.
PS.....I am active helping my elderly neighbors and such but I have def. taken a self-preservation stance of high order lately.
Greed is one dimension of human beings. Satiety, frugality are among others.
Some people are more inclined to greed than others. Others are more inclined to satiety or frugality.
That is variability.
A stretch to declare that a system based on greed is human nature. As done by US citizens.
One thing sure: in an environment built to favour greed, naturally greedy people thrive. If their greed is reinforced by cultural endocrination, it only makes things better. In the end, deep selection on people as those who are unfit for a greed based environment do not prosper.
As the physical possibilities to maintain a greed based environment are waning, the idea that most people who will make it to that point will be largely the finest of humanity in terms of greed is the promise of a great show to come.
You mean it's an echo chamber of greed-driven sociopathy rather than the Word of God? Say it ain't so!
I dunno, Bob...I see a lot of Christians driving SUVs (they've even got stickers on the back to advertise it).
cultural endocrination? is that like a pissing contest?
I asked earlier for an example of a system that is ultimately not greedy.
Let me add "man-made" to the description of system.
Greed is a manifestation of insecurity. Self preservation is a basic human instinct, i.e., the need to feel secure. We may vary individually in the degree of the depth of our insecurity (degree of greed), but is is there lurking in us all. Hence, it is there lurking in every system we construct, manage, and depend upon. Ultimately, we are tribal creatures, and we can't help it on a collective level.
How about a monastery. A self sustaining system of cooperating individuals not greedy, at least for money. If you count love of God and desire for Heaven as greed then I guess they are greedy.
So, human greed may be inevitable but it can be used in different ways.
I would agree this seems like a good example, but I don't know. Never lived in a monestary; never studied them, either. Last I checked, though, they are populated by humans, so I am pretty sure there are all kinds of deviations in behavior of both individuals and monastics groups.
I mean, another really good example would be the kind, benevolent, generous Holy Catholic Church, right? Love of God, desire for Heaven and for ______. You can fill in the blank regarding other possible "desires".
More shallow attempts at offuscation. By the way, it shows the underlying issue of the order built by the US: it has selected a certain kind of people while this order is unable to sustain the environment favourable to this kind of people. Admission of facts is out of question. The more reality will knock at the door, the more people will deny. Because it goes against their nature as the result of the selection process they went through.
Security is achieved when one destroys the environment one is supported by?
And there is a nice strawsman: occurences of greed differ in frequence in a non based greed system and a greed based system.
Apologies for the tautology but in a greed based system, people are greedy most of the times. Not every single moment in their life.
Greed is indeed part of human nature. But human nature is not sumed up to greed as US citizens propaganda like to sell. Satiety and frugality are also part of the human nature. And systems do suppress or enhance the expression of each.
The US world order has chosen to exarcerbate greed.
US world order.
Look, I don't know what your personal beef with the U.S. is, and God knows there is plenty to be unhappy about, but do you have a suggestion as to another country you would prefer to be the dominant power on this planet?
Furthermore, I'm not making any broad statements about anyone being greedy all the time or most of the time. I'm not hungry all the time or horny all the time - BUT, if hungry enough, or horny enough, don't get in my way or be shocked if I want more than my share.
My point is that, like it or not, there are primary instincts we are programmed with, and they are universal. U.S., Chinese, or Ugandan, it doesn't matter. One of those is the deep seeded need for security, and greed is a manifestation of insecurity. Really not that complicated.
Hunger and sexual arousement are now greed?
Another blatant example of how US citizens want to paint everything as greed. With them, everything is greed then it is sure that they do not miss their propaganda effort.
Neither hunger or sexual appetite are greed.
Nothing against the US. It is just a US world order so it is natural they get the focus on them.
Or should everyone take the US path of blaming Zimbabwe when these guys are so powerless they cant influence piss in this world state of affairs or blame human nature when systemics constraint the expression of human nature?
I dont take that path.
Zimbabwe is meaningless.
Human nature is not sumed up to greed. Sexual appetite, hunger are not greed.
And the current greed based system is the legacy of the US to the world.
O.K....if you say so. I quit. Have a nice weekend, whatever anonymous location you are in.
doop
Well-said, 11b40!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29
The big variable to the population carrying capacity is:
AT what standard of living? Western or third world? I consume more resources per day than an entire third world tribe does in a year, and that doesn't even take into account that I am saving the world by going as an "ecotourist" when I board the jet to travel to Galapagos or my home abroad in Philippines.
The only saving grace is that I have only one child.
Home in the Philippines... clearly you know what reality is. (my wife is from there- and although I was pretty much aware before I'd met her and travelled there, being there in person really brings reality into focus)
I am impressed.... Discussions on topics of this sort have dramatically improved over the past year or so here at Zerohedge...
Review the LTG models published back in the early '70s... our flight path is bang on one of the scenarios. All this was obvious to any rational person and has been for a long time...
Yes. The '70s was the key inflection. I don't even think that many of the 'doom n gloomers' quite understand the complexity of risk to global resources. They put everything on a linear scale in 2 dimensions and think they have a model of the real world. Not.
And by the way, Arable land is a racist word
And by the way, Arable land is a racist word
Ha ha ha good one, should we call it Aryan land how about rich black soil what about that. Or red clay what about that. Red Clay would be a good name for a sherrif in a western, Clint Eastwood as Red Clay ha ha ha.
There has been improvement, but it has a long way to go.
I think Tyler rejects the concept of finite oil because the ramifications are so extreme that the scenario triggers the rejection filter, and not just of the scenario -- of the concept.
I see this often and there is just no question that it is most often in people who have very young families. It is the nature of man to look at his children and see their bright future. When it's clear the future is horrible, they absolutely cannot accept it.
Here are the rules, guys:
1) Food does not come from the vague concept of "FARMS". It comes from 18 wheeler trucks. Trucks are what put food on your grocery store shelves. They have 400 horsepower engines. It takes that much power to run the truck and the refrigeration. A horsepower is 745 watts.
2) A barrel of oil holds 5.6 X 10^6 BTUs of energy. A barrel of room pressure natural gas holds 5600 BTUs. 1/1000th the amount.
3) Supply and demand do not define the marketplace for items required for life. Nuclear weapons do. A man with a starving daughter who doesn't have enough money to buy her food will kill whoever has it and take it, even if that someone has a daughter of his own. There Will Be No Volunteers, and gold will mean nothing.
4) Famines are very common in history. Look up the list in wiki. Technology solved none of them. The weather changed and stopped the starvation. "We'll get by because we always have" is a statement that suggests mankind actually did something to fix the problem (like starvation or bubonic plague). Mankind did nothing to stop those. They stopped themselves. We lucked out. Medical historians know better than almost anyone that the human race should not have survived plague. It should have killed us all. We lucked out that rattus rattus was replaced by rattus norvegicus, a rat with fewer fleas.
There were people in Europe with a certain genetic mutation who were immune to plague. At least those who inherited two copies of the mutated gene were immune, those with only one copy got sick, but mostly recovered. People with that same mutation today appear to be immune to HIV. People with type O blood are resistant to syphilis. People with type A blood are resistant to influenza. It would take more than a disease to kill us all. Epidemics just culls the herd.
It culls the herd in the case it only culls it.
The plague story is nice but there is no predetermination to assure that people will get the right cosmic rays due mutation to ensure that they are immune to the next epidemy. It is just random, can happen as it can not happen.
No one has immunity to massive environmental changes like those seen from massive volcanic activity, massive frozen methane release from the seabeds or a massive asteroid impact. The earth, as is the universe, is a dangerous place, we were lucky to live in a quiet stable time period, all such periods end in disaster.
At the least there is a very real possibility some of us could see the beginnings of the next glaciational ice age begin within their life times.
We are lucky, but even luck runs out eventually.
we are seeing it
july 2011 sea ice melt is approaching that of 2007
July 18, 2011 Early sea ice melt onset, snow cover retreat presage rapid 2011http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html
It culls the herd in the case it only culls it.
The plague story is nice but there is no predetermination to assure that people will get the right cosmic rays due mutation to ensure that they are immune to the next epidemy. It is just random, can happen as it can not happen.
If we're lucky, the current economic crisis shows us that we always run out of money before we run out of the things we really need.
We have built our debt pyramid on a fluffy cloud of cheap energy. We might not be out of oil- maybe the abiotic oil nuts aren't really nuts at all. Maybe the planet is one giant tar-ball. But the big Q is: Can we get to that oil, and at what cost?
So, I'm not worried about topsoil depletion, honeybee or bat population crashes, climate change, GMO's, or any other food-based nightmare scenario, including overpopulation.
The system of compund daily interest will save us all- watch:
Usury is the world's most potent destructive force. I have to pay back 3x everything I borrow. This completely fucked up system is only sustainable with unlimited amounts of cheap, nearly free, energy. That's where the 3x comes from, bitchez. Take away cheap, nearly free energy, and where are you going to get your "miracle of compound interest"?
The whole house of debt-cards comes tumbling down. In the overwheming dislocation, as resources are no longer distributed in any orderly form, people get hungry, the grouchy, the they start killing each other, which means they take time off from growing food, or drilling for more oil... damn! This focus on mayhem seems to exacerbate the problem, but this minor detail will do nothing but increase its popularity as a solution.
Whe the smoke clears, and the survivors climb from the wreckage, they will discover that the honeybees, bats, and topsoil fared much better than they did. The survivors may manage to find a holy book, in which (they all say this) it tells them to eshew usury at all costs. Maybe a culture then develops that heeds this admonition, until a tribe comes along that thinks it is more special than everyone else, and has, therefore the right to charge usury to anyone who is not a member. This will drive all the other tribes to charging usury as well, until another system of usury develops, which will then bring us right back around again...
The next glacial period, which there is absolutely NO way around, WILL reset everything (and even the birds and bees will be culled). Yeah, humans helped speed up the process, but the process was always built-in: and soil biology is the canary in he coal mine- loss of sufficient carbon sinking is the trigger that sets the next glacial cycle in motion; churn soil (mother nature's big roto-tiller) then start the next inter-glacial period (Thousands of years later).
Wait a minute, Seer!
Have you been reading my mail?
We certainly are on the same page today
Thanks for saying this om
From on old man to another "oldman," thanks for being wise :-) (knowledge is meaningless without wisdom)
Just a note to what someone else posted (above somewhere)- I too feel relief seeing the much improved level of dialog here on ZH on subjects such as this.
A quote from Scott Nearing (whose book "The Good Life" inspired me): "Work as well as you can and be kind."
The global resource naysayers are actually the extremists: they advocate not just maintaining but expanding the rate of consumption growth. It's an economic necessity buit in to their equations.
That, of course, involves a whole bunch of assumptions about rather unpredictable things.
Bottom line: the naysayers advocate no planning whatsoever. Their solution? Blind Faith.
Complex non-linear problems are typically "addressed" by faith based solutions. The first such solution was Adam Smiths "Invisible Hand".... Nowadays, GW is a great example. Ask any GW denier here at the hedge to state in their own words why AGW is wrong and you will see "faith" on display...
All the Prime Farmland will either be owned by foreign interests or Imminent Domained..Im placing my bets on A-1 Ag land in natural "Rainfed" Regions..
Appalacians bitchez !!!!
That's where my farm is, beautiful Floyd county VA. Water is just not going to be our problem here. No water flows into Floyd, it all flows out. I have 3 artesian springs myself, and a creek. The land's a bit slopy for some kinds of crops, but cows do fine even on the steep stuff (sorry vegans, these cows don't take food out of human mouths, that land can't do anything much else useful), and there is *some* flat bottom land.
It's a nice place, and a great place to live, cool people. Don't y'all come at the same time though.
Not "Imminent Domained" but rather "Eminent Domained" though if you are in the process, it surely feel imminent.
Our entire galaxy is made up of endless amount of energy and resources!!!!!!
Have you ever stuck your hand out the car window on the highway and felt the power of the wind. We can tap power from the big bang the same way. It is simple as this:1) when standing on the earth's equator your body travels 40,000 km in 24 hours (pretty quick); 2) Your body travels around the sun in one year at an order of maginitude speed higher (were moving now); 3) Our body rotates around the solar system in 40,000ish years (another order of magnitude higher in speed); 4) Our body on the solar system is travelling through space as flying debris from the big bang explosion at almost the speed of light. That's right we are almost travelling at the speed of light as we sit here. The plan: 1) Replace the car window with a manufactured worm hole to intercept a stiller quandrant of space; 2) Replace your arm through the car window window with a nonillion volt power conduit; 3) replace you hand with a particle impact powered energy colection device.
I have draft patent. Send me your contact info including bank acount and we acn make a deal.
You know wormholes require massive amounts of energy (as in: more than we could ever generate, period) to create, yes?
Space-based solar with earth-based alternatives like wind and geothermal combined with conservation would work fine; no need for histrionics.
Now that is some hyperbole! You know that the reason you feel wind on your hand out the car is because oil is propelling you through the atmosphere?
TPOG
Actually you are only aware of the entire perception of wind etc, because of your central nervous system including your brain and nerve endings. For instance hold a clam in you hand when you put it outside the window, and the clam will not notice the wind. Clams are also not very good at math or typing.
Have you thanked your brain today for everything it has done for you? Of all the organs in the body, only the brain knows it is there. The liver doesn't know it is there, but the brain does and sends it some work to do every day.
To have an infinite power source on an finite planet is to invite massive disaster. We can reduce demand in 1st world countries without reducing comfort or perceived wealth. Insulation for instances, reduces energy use.
Now to address the totally unfeasible energy production system using blackholes and car windows, a more practical and cost effective technique is to simply drill a hole to the center of the earth and use the latent heat to power our electric toothbrushes and bath towel warmers. I own the patent on this, but would be willing to license it liberally for a nominal fee. I can throw in some slightly used drilling equipment at real bargain price as well.
shhh!!!!!!!!!!!
I share Grantham's optimism on the potential of humanity, but am deeply cynical about humanity's ability to live up to the challenge.
be a farmer...and buy gold.
"Running out completely of potassium (potash) and phosphorus (phosphates) and eroding our soils are the real long-term problems we face."
great point, however potash & phosphates are still around, unfortunately we just mixed them up in landfills with all sorts of other toxic crap : plastics, lead paint, computer components, etc. so maybe in a couple thousand years, it will be usable again.
and maybe it's not so much the P-K (& N) that's the real issue (as it's not so difficult to reintroduce that into the soil through proper practices), but the trace mineral depletion:
http://remineralize.org/
It's worse than the landfills, which I predict will someday become high grade "mines".
It's the oceans, where all the run off eventually lands. Once there, it's kinda hard to recover (expensive) without junk you don't want (salt). Even if the oceans wound up with all -- it'd still be pretty dilute.
On a much smaller scale. I once spent some time on a tiny island in the Bahamas, a few town folk and one hotel. The locals couldn't believe the hotel paid them to rake the beaches of the seaweed. They'd have done it anyway. They stacked it on screen racks, let the rain wash off the salt, and composted it to fertilize their gardens. A slick, if small-scale way to get the nutrients back.
funny spent a lost afternoon many years back on a similar island (maybe the same one?) with some locals, a lot of rum and a rake collecting seaweed. it was my 1st excursion learning about the world of the soil. one of the best days of my life. everytime i go to the beach, always come back with a bag of goodies.
Wow, finally someone else who has encountered this (and John D. Hamaker). I agree that there's a LOT to this, but... I've always wanted to see someone work up the numbers for how much energy would be required to grind up "rocks," whether the resultant CO2 is sufficiently offset by this process (release of CO2).
Regardless, I think this entire concept pretty much tells how the earth works, how it cycles. As someone facinated with soil I think that it's pretty much spot-on.
We survive on (average) a few inches of topsoil (and a thin atmosphere). And topsoil exists thanks to the life-giving processes of microorganisms in the soil.
seer, maybe don't have to grind? heard a guy talk about this issue and he mentioned that you can run all the rocks that are smaller than your fist through a compost pile and let the microbes start working on them. also said that one can rebuild a large portion of minerals back simply by using locally available rocks (basalt, gypsum, etc)
I am in Texas. Cattle and crop loss is high due to the heat and no rain. I have had no rain for 60 days and the grass is eaten down and brown. I sold off some of my herd last year due to the bad summer. However, I have 16 grown head and 9 little calves. I am fortunate to have excess hay bought last year to await a lucky hay buy this year. Hay is up to $100 a large round bale. Last year it was $35 to $50. In past years $25 to $30. I will spend $8,000 on hay and feed to sell maybe $4,000 in calves. My Russian Belarus tractor parts friend in Iowa told me last night that the feed lots there are losing cattle by the hundreds due to high heat and humidity.
Dont tell me about how everyone should be a farmer rather than a banker. The only reason I still have cattle is that we have owned this herd for decades. Selling off excess calves is one thing, selling off the mommas that we watched being born will be a last ditch stance. If you have a freezer, beef may be a good item to buy over the next 60 days or so as some herds are sold off.
Been a rotten year up here in VA too, though for different reasons, and probably less often -- most years are very good. And those floods in the middle of the country - ouch, we're both lucky, onlooker.
I suspect part of the puzzle is that some places are a lot better for farming than others, and just because air conditioning and well drilling lets us use land (at all) in places not so friendly doesn't make them great farming locations. Before we had this population explosion, those places weren't so populated and not much farming was done in them.
The thing is - there's simply not enough earth for the (naturally already) good farmland to support anything like the current population should they desire to become farmers at lower efficiency than the factory farms. Should the population density even out, things might be even worse. A suddend flood of people from the cities would really ruin things. So anyone contemplating moving to the country, do it now -- there will be few enough with the pair it takes to make it, and we can handle that amount. When or if the mass exodus happens -- not so good to be in that, we'll not have room for ya. Right now we're friendly to strangers. That could change.
"Dont tell me about how everyone should be a farmer rather than a banker."
One cannot eat money...
As you clearly note, it's a tough way to make a living. But, it's an honest living! Life is a struggle- period! (over 4 billion people live on $3/day or less- and we think WE have problems?)
It's cyclic. Sometimes we have to designate stuff as balast, even though it's much more valuable, and toss it overboard.
I have the opposite problem as you (and maybe worse in the fact that I have not yet established anything even approaching "production" [vis a vis grazers])- TOO much water, and too much grass/vegetation! My land as it currently is couldn't really support ANY meaningful herd size: I've scaled by aspiration down a bit to accepting that the only grazers (other than the deer) that I'll be able to sustain will be sheep: my wife, who is able to adjust to anything, suggests that we might just have to raise fish! (partly humor, partly not)
Maybe look at all this from the replacement cost accounting angle that the Stockman Grassfarmer touts? (but then there's the issue of whether you can regenerate your pastures enough to ramp back up and take advantage)
Driving by hay fields just last week I remarked on the bumper crop of hay this year due to an unusually wet spring followed by hot sunny weather. This is in Ontario Canada. I bet a lot of that hay ends up in Texas and Florida, it usually does.
Classic!
Yeah, I think he meant logistic.
“The most significant characteristic of modern civilization is the sacrifice of the future for the present, and all the power of science has been prostituted to this purpose.”
- William James
I should've recognized the james in you
Rockefeller, Gates, GMO giants build Arctic "Doomsday Seed
Vault"
Geostrategic researcher and historian F. William Engdahl comments in the article below
that, when Gates, Rockefeller and Agribusiness get together on a project, it is prudent to
take notice. Indeed.
There is a highly public side to the "International Seed Vault" in Svalbard, a group of
islands above the Arctic Circle and under the rule of Norway since 1925. A search of
articles reveals that an association of benevolent philanthropists are financing an arc, of
sorts, on the magnitude of Noah, to preserve the plant kingdom against an apocalypse.
http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/campain/svalbard-global-seed-vault....
Suck a dick, Grantham.