[LINK] Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
Antony Barry
tony at tony-barry.emu.id.au
Tue Feb 6 12:10:15 AEDT 2007
On 05/02/2007, at 12:47 PM, Richard Archer wrote:
> The earth CAN sustainably produce enough food and resources
> for 6 billion people. That is, 6 billion Vietnamese, not
> 6 billion Australians or Americans.
>
> The problem is, we in developed countries don't want to live
> the Vietnamese lifestyle. We don't want to be self-sufficient
> and sustainable.
Making ethanol from sugar cane and corn to fuel our cars is pushing
up their price. Making biodiesel for our vehicles from palm oil is
resulting in tropical forests being knocked down putting more carbon
into the atmosphere or where we use soy pushing up its price.
The rich move up the food chain and eat more meat. Grain gets
diverted to stock feed and grain gets more expensive. World grain
stocks per capita are at their lowest for 35 years and have been
steadily trending down.
Global warming is going to hit the grain areas hardest as will
depletion of ground water in the US, India and China.
We can grow a lot now because of the green revolution but it requires
a big input of fossil fuels for agricultural machinery, fertiliser,
pesticides, pumping and transport. Both peak oil and global warming
will hit our food producing systems very hard.
We anticipate that the world population will peak at 9 billion which
will be a lot harder than the present six.
There is going to a lot of very hungary vegetarians who are fit
because they do a lot of walking.
Tony
phone : 02 6241 7659 | mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
mobile: 04 1242 0397 | mailto:tony.barry at alianet.alia.org.au
http://tony-barry.emu.id.au
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