Global Population Growth

[Tritonic]

Even if our population stays the same, modern agriculture is not sustainable. Eventually production will fall below what is necessary to keep 7 billion people alive.

You're going on about the same claims made in the http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 1&start=25 thread, where I recently replied and shot them down.

So therefore the very situation in which they got near our standards of living would presume a system predominantly differently based. Maybe it is the 2050s, and everybody is using solar power which progress made cheaper than its fossil fuel competition?

Not just power idiot, but food production. Food production alone will keep this situation from happening.

You seriously believe technological progress will stop due to you imagining the world starving to death?

[Alyrium Denryle]

You're going on about the same claims made in the viewtopic.php?f=22&t=142101&start=25 thread, where I recently replied and shot them

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 1#p3308321

Dealt with your false comparisons and shitty grasp of statistics, plus your guilt by association fallacy.

You seriously believe technological progress will stop due to you imagining the world starving to death?

Wow. And strawmen+poor reading comprehension too.

[Simon_Jester]

There is some truth in that, though such is not an argument against aid so much as the type of aid. For instance, direct food aid can even hurt local farming if it undercuts their prices, whereas an ideal would be aid which helps their productivity rise from such as the 1.5 tons per hectare of corn in sub-saharan Africa today towards the much greater 8.6 tons per hectare in North America (towards only 17% as much land having to be turned into farmland to supply a given amount of food, allowing more to be spared for nature reserves in the process).

In many cases, the increased crop yield in North America is subsidized by chemicals that don't last forever. When we run out of petrochemical fertilizer crop yields will collapse, because modern agricultural methods effectively amount to strip-mining the world's topsoil. Think about it. You've got these charming, lovely methods for using X tons of fertilizer to produce 10X tons of food or whatever. Where are the other 9X tons coming from? Much of it comes out of the soil, and if you keep that up long enough, you wind up wearing away the fertility of the land.

Still more of that tonnage comes out of water supplies; the more food you produce per hectare, the more water you need to sustain the crops as they grow. The depletion of water supplies in irrigated cropland is already a major problem in some developing (and developed) countries. It won't go away if we're speeding up crop growth.

[Tritonic]

There is some truth in that, though such is not an argument against aid so much as the type of aid. For instance, direct food aid can even hurt local farming if it undercuts their prices, whereas an ideal would be aid which helps their productivity rise from such as the 1.5 tons per hectare of corn in sub-saharan Africa today towards the much greater 8.6 tons per hectare in North America (towards only 17% as much land having to be turned into farmland to supply a given amount of food, allowing more to be spared for nature reserves in the process).

In many cases, the increased crop yield in North America is subsidized by chemicals that don't last forever. When we run out of petrochemical fertilizer crop yields will collapse, because modern agricultural methods effectively amount to strip-mining the world's topsoil.

The ammonia NH3 for fertilizer produced by the Haber process doesn't come from oil. Nitrogen is 80% of the atmosphere, and we will never run out of it. What the Haber process requires is energy, a nitrogen source (from air), and a hydrogen source. Currently we predominantly use natural gas (not oil though) for the hydrogen source, though such only consumes 3% to 5% of the world's natural gas production. As pointed out before, there are other methods too. China uses coal instead of natural gas a lot (using the coal to get hydrogen from water). Biomass gasification can also be used for the hydrogen, and, for that matter, you could produce the hydrogen from nuclear or solar powered electrolysis of water if desired. A tiny, tiny portion of the world's total energy supply goes into producing fertilizer, by the way.

Think about it. You've got these charming, lovely methods for using X tons of fertilizer to produce 10X tons of food or whatever. Where are the other 9X tons coming from? Much of it comes out of the soil, and if you keep that up long enough, you wind up wearing away the fertility of the land.

I see the problem here: Without the proper basic knowledge base, like incorrectly thinking carbon in plants comes from soil rather than fixation of carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, your whole perspective is skewed.

Atmospheric CO2 plus water (H2O) and a far lesser amount of nitrogen supplies the COHN which comprises the vast majority of plant mass. How do we know this? Well, there are many ways, but one of them is the fact that you can grow plants without soil at all, even with a carbon-free nutrient solution. (Although not as cheap as conventional farming in most cases, utterly everything from wheat to potatoes can be grown hydroponically). Experiments early in the last century determined exactly what were the nutrients required. Here's a simple illustration:

Plants require 16 elements for growth and these nutrients can be supplied from air, water, and fertilizers. The 16 elements are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), boron (B), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), molybdenum (Mo), and chlorine (Cl). <snip>

For Florida greenhouse vegetable producers, management focuses on all nutrients except for C, H, and O. The latter three elements are usually supplied in adequate amounts from air and water. Growers in northern climates, where greenhouses are not ventilated in the winter, see benefits from additions of C from carbon dioxide (CO2).

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/cv216

This may superficially seem contradictory with how organic compost is good for soil and growing plants in it, but actually there's no contradiction. The dead biomass in the compost gradually releases mineral and nutrients (and there are many other details like even worms in decaying matter helping aerate the soil). But you don't fundamentally need the carbon there to grow plants, and you can supply artificial nutrients, even up to the extreme case of growing plants hydroponically in an inert medium like gravel. Neither hydroponic nutrient solutions nor other artificial fertilizer tend to contain carbon, as, again, plants rather get that from atmospheric CO2.

Commonly there is already enough of minor mineral nutrients naturally even in relatively mediocre dirt, and the prime focus of most fertilizer is on nitrogen and phosphates.

Still more of that tonnage comes out of water supplies; the more food you produce per hectare, the more water you need to sustain the crops as they grow.

That's only slightly true, as counter-intuitive as such may initially seem. Actually so much of water loss is due to evaporation over the fields in general that we've increased yields without even remotely close to linear scaling up of water requirements in the process. One acre of corn giving Y yield, compared to the same acre giving a lesser X yield, doesn't actually result in Y/X linear increase in water requirements because so little of the irrigation water is going into permanent incorporation into the plant biomass anyway compared to primarily evaporation per unit land area.

Such is well illustrated by historical data. Compare this:



to meanwhile this:



or this:

[Simon_Jester]

Think about it. You've got these charming, lovely methods for using X tons of fertilizer to produce 10X tons of food or whatever. Where are the other 9X tons coming from? Much of it comes out of the soil, and if you keep that up long enough, you wind up wearing away the fertility of the land.

I see the problem here. Without the proper basic knowledge base, like incorrectly thinking carbon in plants comes from soil rather than fixation of carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, your whole perspective is skewed. CO2 plus water (H2O) and a far lesser amount of nitrogen supplies the COHN which comprises the vast majority of plant mass.

Without the proper basic knowledge base. Right. I don't know about photosynthesis, no sirree! Topsoil depletion is just a myth. Gotcha.

This may superficially seem contradictory with how organic compost is good for soil and growing plants in it, but actually there's no contradiction. The dead biomass in the compost gradually releases mineral and nutrients (and there are many other details like even worms in decaying matter helping aerate the soil). But you don't fundamentally need the carbon there to grow plants, and you can supply artificial nutrients, even up to the extreme case of growing plants hydroponically in an inert medium like gravel. Neither hydroponic nutrient solutions nor other artificial fertilizer tend to contain carbon, as, again, plants rather get that from atmospheric CO2.

The problem is that hydroponic farming is far more industrially intensive than dirt farming; trying to replace the latter with the former will torpedo any attempt to scale up actual output. The result being that we still end up unable to feed seven-plus billion people indefinitely, because we can't construct hectares of hydroponic farms fast enough to make up for the hectares of dirt farms being destroyed by nonsustainable output.

One acre of corn giving Y yield, compared to the same acre giving a lesser X yield, doesn't actually result in Y/X linear increase in water requirements because so little of the irrigation water is going into permanent incorporation into the plant biomass anyway compared to primarily evaporation per unit land area.

Did I say it would? It doesn't help; that doesn't mean doubling yield doubles water consumption. But it accelerates an already serious problem, thus further decreasing the time for which farming in those areas can be sustained.

Sustainability is THE number one concern for farming in the modern era. The Green Revolution stuff is awesome (note my sig), yes, but if we can't keep it up for the next several centuries, Alyrium is right and we're screwed. And switching from industrially non-intensive to industrially intensive programs is problematic, especially in regions of the world with limited industrial infrastructure.

[Tritonic]

The problem is that hydroponic farming is far more industrially intensive than dirt farming; trying to replace the latter with the former will torpedo any attempt to scale up actual output.

The primary relevance of hydroponic farming here is actually to illustrate how much artificial fertilizer can compensate for local soil deficiencies, an illustration easily made by the most extreme case even though the situation in practice is far less extreme. The point is not, for instance, that anytime soon all of food production would switch to growing plants in inert gravel mediums with hydroponic solutions, but, rather, we'll be supplementing soil that is still a far less-inert medium than that.

As discussed in the other thread, even their claimed 7.5 * 10^10 ton annual soil loss rate is around 1 / 1000th or less of the approximately 8 * 10^13 metric ton mass of the first 0.3 meter of world dirt alone, and the average soil just a few extra millimeters down isn't *that* drastically different. (Here in midwest America, for instance, we're known for having good soil even several feet down).

I'm actually more than a bit suspicious of many of their figures, since nobody has found or linked exact details beyond that news article reporting what someone said at a conference. For instance, the non-presence of giant dust clouds like those of the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s should give someone serious pause before assuming soil loss in America today is as high as it used to be. Nor do the experts at the official government USDA share their expectations.

But it accelerates an already serious problem, thus further decreasing the time for which farming in those areas can be sustained.

Only in certain local areas do you have reliance on unsustainable past buildup of groundwater. Other areas already rely on current rainfall. If we need a small percentage extra water over the decades, hopefully even you don't think we can build only zero desalination plants ever. Some countries can (and often long have) had troubles, but, like most aspects of human welfare, you're much better off if your country has significant per capita income.

There are always troubles. Overall human welfare is higher, though, than in any prior century by far, and it is headed for staying that way thanks to applied technology.

[Tritonic]

To be sure it is made explicit:

Carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen combined = around 92+% of plant mass even in dry weight
Nitrogen = 1% - 5% of mass
Everything else combined (mostly potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and phosphorus) = several percent total

In short, biomass is primarily CNOH, and there's a lot less nitrogen than the other three.

Because the bulk of growing biomass comes from water and atmospheric CO2, the mass requirements of artificial fertilizer needs are so relatively low in comparison, even when local soils are poor in pre-existing natural nutrients. Fertilizer applied to fields is mostly ammonia, though local soil being short on phosphates is common too, leading to phosphates in fertilizer mixes.

[sirocco]

This is brought about due to reading the recent stories about topsoil and the farmer's plight in India.

I know it sounds cold, but would anybody here honestly feel that bad if we stopped supplying places like Africa and India with aid and allowed them to sink or swim entirely on their own, when we know that in many cases they would fail and many would die? Is it ethical to say that we have a duty to stop those populations from growing by any means possible? I mean the rest of the world, for all of its faults, is at least having a sustainable birth rate and we're slowly seeing the need to change lifestyles.

I'm not meaning to say we should actively kill them, but the world can't support this population and, through no fault of their own, these populations can be reduced with little effort because they're too fragile to survive without our aid.

Does this just make me a monster, or is it viable if we had enough will to act?

On the other hand, places like Africa are generally rich in natural resources. Were you to stop helping them, they might realize that your way of life actively depends on those resources and they'd start reclaiming by force the mining sites from foreign companies then selling them at far higher prices to be able to feed the population.

So no you're not a monster. You're just looking for trouble.

[Iosef Cross]

I know it sounds cold, but would anybody here honestly feel that bad if we stopped supplying places like Africa and India with aid and allowed them to sink or swim entirely on their own, when we know that in many cases they would fail and many would die? Is it ethical to say that we have a duty to stop those populations from growing by any means possible? I mean the rest of the world, for all of its faults, is at least having a sustainable birth rate and we're slowly seeing the need to change lifestyles.

The first world doesn't give aid to these countries in significant quantities. If the US stopped giving aid to Africa now, the dictators that channel these funds to their pockets would lose some money.

India is pretty much self sufficient, and is a growing economy. Soon, their population growth rates will decrease.

I'm not meaning to say we should actively kill them, but the world can't support this population and, through no fault of their own, these populations can be reduced with little effort because they're too fragile to survive without our aid.

Does this just make me a monster, or is it viable if we had enough will to act?

The UN gave the Africans aid in terms of vaccines during the 50,60's, that their government didn't. This reduced their mortality rates while their birth rates didn't decrease. As result the population of Africa increased from 200 million to 800 million between 1950 and 2000. I think that it is safe to say that they shouldn't have done that.

Usually mortality rates decrease with economic growth, and birth rates decrease as well, with a lag that produces population growth. In Africa, this lag became immense because their mortality rates didn't decrease due to economic progress, but to artificial international intervention.

[Iosef Cross]

I would argue that food aid (and economic growth without concurrent high income equality or a high per capita GDP) actually drives up birth rates as well as infant morality. The reason this happens is because females (of many species, humans included) use a sort of portfolio diversification model for their reproductive allocation.

Why the birth rates of many countries fall when under fast economic growth them? I think you need to modify the mother's utility function.

In unstable conditions they have a first kid and heavily invest. Then they have a second as an insurance policy in case the first one dies, and just in case they end up on the better side of a dice roll they get two kids. They do this again, and again throughout their reproductive lives, which in environments with high growth but low GDP is short (generation time is shorter too because they reproduce early). The growth gives her the excuse to keep doing this. If growth were stagnant, and GDP Low she would not have nearly as many kids because she would have worse odds of improving her condition and the cost of producing each marginal child increases.

I don't think I understand wtf you are trying to say. But from what you have written above, it appears that you assume that high GDP grow increases the marginal benefit of having more kids. The problem is that kids only turn out a profit after about 20 years, if they start to work at ~10. Usually people had kids for when they retire, their kids pay off their bills. The invention of social security made other people's kids to pay their social security checks.

Having more kids in the present will increase costs for about 15 years, while high GDP growth will imply in higher returns in the next 15-20 years time. Considering the high intertemporal discount rates that people with live 40 years have, I don't think that twice the rate of per capita growth will have great effect on birth rates.

In situations where there is high GDP, this is not the case to the same degree. Women can delay reproduction and have a few highly competitive offspring rather than having to cast lots with several children and hope one or two get through. This is the case regardless of growth, though lower growth prevents what I will call "diminishing returns" babies from being born.

You mean low children mortality rates, as caused by high GDP?

Disregarding mortality rates, with high income inequalities, mothers would tend to have less babies and invest more per baby. Since if they are more competitive in this setting, they will earn correspondingly higher incomes than if income was less unequal (in other words, if the 20% better paid earn in average 5 times more than the average, instead of 3, it would pay more to have their sons competitive enough to enter the higher brackets, in other words, the marginal benefit of investment into a offspring becomes larger).

So we need to do one of two things. Cut foreign aid completely and let their populations stabilize in misery, or we can invest a bit more in their economies and KEEP THE MONEY AND RESOURCES LOCAL GOD DAMN IT. The problem with using economic growth (I ran a multiple regression in a huge multi nation data set a while back, I will post the results if you all want me to) is that in poor nations what usually happens is that profits from an economic venture in the area are never seen by the locals. They get their dollar a day, their local resources are stripped, and the people really making money are in western countries. What needs to happen is that businesses be owned by the entire village and proceeds from those businesses (like a factory or something) be distributed among them equally. In other words, we need communism in these really really early stages of economic growth to keep income inequality and the instability it brings with it from driving up population growth.

This is the most concentrated pile of bullshit that I have ever read in this forum. This shows why biologists doesn't have a clue of how to develop countries.

First I need to say that poor countries have a very high grow potential since they have a great degree of inefficiency and low levels of capital invested per capita. So the marginal productivity of capital is higher and the profit opportunities from correcting the inefficiencies are large. The question is why they don't growth faster? Because they lack the institutions of the developed countries.

Second, what you call "communism" with would be like marginal income tax rates of 100% for incomes above the average, will imply in the absence of entrepreneurship, since nobody would start a business in an African country if they cannot make more than their average. Hence, it would freeze development and would result in the destruction of any capital that had been accumulated into the country that adopted such policy.

What poor countries need are strong basic institutions: Strong property rights, strong police protection, judicial security, institutional certainty, reasonable taxes, light bureaucracy, freedom of capital movement and free trade.

The first five points are simple: for people to save and invest, their property must be secure in the long run. If there are wars, revolutions, high taxes and robbery, people will tend to consume everything in the present. Also, high bureaucracy will increase the costs of starting companies, with are the vehicles for better allocating resources.

Freedom of capital movement is necessary for foreign capital to enter their economies. Since poor countries have high marginal productivity of capital, the prices of capital goods will tend to be higher than the world average, hence, entrepreneurs will tend to buy capital goods in the world market and sell them to these countries. In other words, poor countries tend to be net importers of capital. Hence, freedom of capital movement will make these countries growth at faster rates.

Freedom of trade means that these countries will be able to import goods where their comparative productivity are lower and export goods where their comparative productivity are higher. Also, they would be able to import technology, increasing their factor productivity.

If an African country adopts all these institutions, the tendency will be for their economies to grow at 10% rates for decades, and quickly (i.e. ~60 years) converge their living standards to the developed countries's level. These improved living standards will first be concentrated into the hands of few people, while with the spread of wealth, development will

China did almost exactly what I suggested and the results are there: they will reach developed country standards of living in about 30 years.

The best aid that developed countries can give poor countries are to invest their capital into them.
And what is called "foreign aid" is not relevant for development. Foreign aid consists of the governments of rich countries to give money to the dictators of poor countries. Modern developed countries had living standards about the same level as the poorest countries in the world today about 200 years ago. They didn't develop via foreign aid from aliens. They did trough the development of modern institutions that today many people take for granted. Thanks to the knowledge accumulated by the developed countries (in the form of technology, institutions and science), Africa today is in a much better position to develop than Europe and the US were 200 years ago.