Which tells us some really cool things about allotments, and how fertile they are compared to intensively farmed land.
I'm not convinced that the UK is in trouble regarding food supply, starting with the 30% of food that gets thrown away, and the amount of energy wasted removing nutrients. The main problem is the social structure which means a million people went to food banks last year, which is set to get worse. I know people involved in both food banks and allotments, BTW. certainly when the financial crisis hit allotments were rapidly snapped up as wages dropped and food price went up.
I don't doubt the soils have been depleted, but 100 years is a long time to sort it out and divert some human pee and poo onto the fields, though it might take some serious riots to change things.
Elsewhere, though, climate change will be really tough on food supplies, Russian wheat harvest, Arab Spring etc etc. I expect more turmoil.
So if Chris thinks "peak soil" (or "peak phosphate" or "peak fresh water"...or whatever) has some sort of big impact on the future economic growth of the U.S., he needs to show how the curve of U.S. economic growth in the U.S. in the 21st century actually will look, given whatever things he thinks are important.
Nah, he doesn't.
If someone draws a projection of human population on the earth, and I can see that it postulates that the human population residing on the earth will eventually exceed the number of atoms on the earth itself, I am perfectly within my "scientific" rights to call bullshit on the projection without needing to generate my own population projection.
There is no requirement for Chris to supply his own projections in order to falsify those made by the CBO, all he need do is prove that the CBO has made a fatal and faulty assumption - in this case, the assumption that resources will simply appear given a large enough price signal.
Well, at least you've made the decision easy for us, Mark. You've completely missed/ignored the point of my earlier intervention, so your comments will now be on moderator review. They will only be posted if they present an empirical argument for your position (i.e., if you think the CBO estimates are believable, what are your specific reasons why besides "The CBO says so"?)
As to Chris' position on the matter, it has been clearly presented in myriad ways, over years. I've lost count of the number of articles we've published on the topic of how resource constraints will place limits on future economic growth, as well as how the government-published numbers (including GDP) are extremely specious.
Of course, these and the many other related articles he's posted on these topics join the 4.5 hours of Crash Course videos, the Crash Course book, the overall PeakProsperity.com website and the years of speaking engagements and media appearances Chris has conducted -- all for the purpose of explaining why future economic growth (read: GDP growth) is slamming into limits created by growing resource scarcity. And that the establishment mindset of our economic and social leaders (read: the mainstream economists you're so fond of) is, so far, unaware of or in denial of this.
I think Dave put it well, that to use data and math to identify flaws in a model is indeed a sufficient act of a scientific and curious mind. Chris is not required to construct a competing GDP methodology to prove his point. Though for future reference: instead of pushing an unfounded demand, you could have simply asked him What type of growth curve for GDP would you expect instead over the next 5 decades? I'm confident he would have not only had an informed idea on the matter, he would have been happy to share it.
And also for future reference: if it's so important to you to get the opinion of certain economists, fine. That's your prerogative. However, do your own legwork.
So… by your continued closed-mindedness to our feedback and insistence we dance to your tune, you've shown yourself to be both lazy AND obtuse. The good news is we don't need to suffer your tone-deaf bloviation anymore, as you are now placed on moderator review. IF you can add constructively (read: empirically) to the debate, your future comments will be posted. If not, good riddance.
An immediate desire to fix things, implemented under Jimmy Carter and then undermined by subsequent administrations, could have easily turned things around. Instead we are facing climate cataclysm, Mother Nature's wrath. A long slow slog would be fast tracked if those in power felt personally threatened by climate fiasco. And, of course, the general population facing the full brunt of droughts, flooding, etc… would comply. Mass extinctions through mechanical displacement of animal populations, among other factors, doesn't seem to be enough.
I don't mean to minimize your efforts. I am just trying to put the scope of the problem into perspective as Chris has done in his article.
Hope doesn't break through denial. A problem has to be acknowledged on a cerebral level and then FELT emotionally and through all the sensory apparatus for it to be real to them. We are insulated from nature in a profound way. We watch decay on TV and encounter it locally, at times, but then return to our safe artificial environments.
Hope is the icing on the cake after fear moves people to get cooking by breaking through denial.
Maybe I should explain a little better here. I feel a 'living on two worlds' nearly took hold of me. I felt that I had devoted so much time to thinking about this subject and have done so many things, on a local level and in the way I live my life, that I could just kick back.
I had a sense of 'time left' and not wanting to compromise my peace of mind and health with even thinking of too much ugliness. I am VERY typical for my age. I felt that being positive and hopeful was the best strategy.
It IS part of the answer and I appreciate all the people who are working their butts off trying to change things. Ultimately, though, I think we also have to consider that hope has it's limits and can easily segue into complacency for many people (like me) Personally, I think it's my responsibility to, at the very least, think about tptb, what motivates them and try to assess what it would take to get them to change.
"With milk, cheese, eggs, vegetables and convenience food all cheaper than they were a year ago, fresh food prices were down 1.2%, the deepest deflation since the BRC shop price index began in December 2006."
OK me being a PhD physicist (using my authority?!?!) I am crying 'foul' on this logical fallacy of appeal to authority. I do not care one wit or tittle about what Einstein or Newton said. Physics is about asking nature about her mysteries. Yes, these guys exposed some of nature's mysteries, but I am sure you are aware even though we understand more stuff then ever before, nature still has a lot of secrets. Do not forget, nature is the master of physics and not any of us, and she is the one playing this game. As an hard core experimentalist, I only trust theories if l don't have time to ask nature (in an experiment). Even perfect theories are prone to gross errors because of us, because we ---all of us--- are quite good of putting garbage into a 'perfect' theory and getting garbage out. Be very careful with appeals to authority, they do get many things right, but when they are really wrong they are monumentally wrong.
Also, I am trying to understand you MarkB. I find it very entertaining that you are challenging stuff here, but why? Why defend the CBO? Are you just messing around, trying to find out something or what?
All I can say is I trust nature more then I trust physicists, and I trust economies more then I trust economists.
CAH has hit the nail on the head. Many people have written more eloquently on this subject than I will ever be able to. This has been a subject of discussion many times here before. Descartes has often been fingered as the father of the psychotic break in western philosophy, others take it back to the roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition, others to Aristotle and Plato. "I think, there for I am", the statement that is the foundation or our narcissistic me centered, self destructive culture. And even as we explore the limits of exponential growth here, we still try to solve the problem with the old narcissistic mind set, so deeply ingrained in the culture it is. New wine going into old skins.
Indeed, the destruction of the division between the perceiver and the thing perceived is the ticket in, but we don't take it seriously, when we return to our normal perceptual structures, it becomes another self centered experience. It is only through the crisis that is about to destroy our current way of life that we will be transformed. But even that we see backwards, it is something bad that is happening to us, because somebody else is doing something wrong. How long will we live in unconscious pain?
Oh, how I hate to write, but I feel compelled to do so!!! I did not want to incarnate here and now, when so many others were fighting to do so, at a time of great planetary transformation, at a point of great discontinuity. Ahhhhhh!!! Even the prince of peace said let this cup pass me by. Why me!!???
Do you understand how brave and amazing you all are, that you came here now to do this work. With such earnestness and sincerity. I am a much more reluctant participant. I have opened the doors or perception to fast and did not build a strong enough heart to bear what I see. I have been standing alone on this precipice for to long. Perhaps we will make it where others have not. Perhaps it does not matter in the way that I think that it does, perhaps that is what I am here learn, we will succeed even if we fail. That is a hard lesson to learn, but maybe that is a way to find our hearts.
The CBO is NOT widely respected, and is not an expert. Indeed, they don’t claim to be. They are a clearinghouse for political lies to achieve a level of political respectability.
All the time, the CBO acknowledges that their numbers have nothing to do with reality,but are constrained by the limitations Congress puts on their modeling to achieve the statistical lie that Congress wants to achieve.
So even the CBO does not respect itself as an expert.
Here’s one: if the tax and investment structure remains the same…
Since when has the tax and investment structure remained the same for EVEN THREE years during normal times? Has there ever been an abnormal time in which they have remained the same for three years?
And it is based on this, that balanced budgets are declared “within twenty years”.
Has THAT ever happened? How long has it been before the assumptions of that balanced budget have been blown sky high?
So non-partisan? Sometimes, yes. Expert? No. Respected? Only if you put an asterisk “by politicains, for politicianse, truth need not apply”.
To misconstrue what the CBO does as any form of serious prognostication is absurd. It is a mere bureaucratic projection of the status quo into the future so that the completely absurd budget process in Washington can take on the semblance of sanity. The "experts" the economic field didn't see the financial crisis of 2008 until they walked deaf, dumb and blind into the middle of the s^#t storm.
Clinging to the "experts" at a time like this is a very dangerous thing. By definition an expert is a person who has "comprehensive and authoritative knowledge". Authorities are by definition the keepers of the current status quo, and in transformative times they can be counted on to be wrong. It is a time to beyond verification of the truth by virtue of the title of the person speaking. The thing must be verified in real time by direct perception, and as recounted in this thread multiple times, such things are entirely possible by many modalities.
You must become your own expert, anything else is a waste of your very valuable time.
… but the timing was pretty much the same (and many finger oil price as popping the US mortgage fraud bubble, no?). I remember very well suddenly allotments were like gold dust because I was spending a lot of time chilling on one.
I agree with CAH. I need to move forward in hope. This is not hope in a religious sense or as an emotion, but hope as an intellectual exercise followed up with action. According to the Oxford dictionary. (Oxford Press online) Hope as a noun is: a desire for a certain thing to happen: As a verb it is: To want something to happen or be the case.
The hope which I try to practice is very close to perseverance. Even though there may appear to be no way, continue to look for a way. Hope (want and desire) that through perseverance and the application of our minds the universe will reveal an answer, or will provide answers that are not yet here. Succumb to pessimism and fear and there will be no door, there will be no way. Even worse, the answer might be here and we will not see it as we will not be looking for it.
Some of you will say I am in denial. I answer that approaching the future with the point of view that all is lost, that all efforts can only amount to nothing, is the ultimate denial. Believing you can do nothing, excuses you from doing anything. If I did not practice hope about the future I would take my favorite drug of choice (Bourbon at the moment) and sit in blissful denial in my beloved New England woods until time and events finally take me. Why waste the energy of posting, arguing, preparing, attempting to teach others, or even the tiring and emotionally draining work of thinking, if you have no hope that the effort can make a difference? We cannot have knowledge or certainty of the future but we can hope about it, for it, and take action based on that hope. I do not see hope as the “icing on the cake” but as one of the motivators that can urge us to action.
As Treebeard said, “Perhaps it does not matter in the way that I think that it does, perhaps that is what I am here (to) learn, we will succeed even if we fail. That is a hard lesson to learn, but maybe that is a way to find our hearts.” We may not succeed, but to surrender without continuing the effort, to me, would be the greatest tragedy and, to my mind, the ultimate act of denial. We are the ones we have been waiting for. No one else will do it.
What do folk think about this fantastic organic farm on the Alaskan permafrost ?
or this indoor hydroponic farm, also in Alaska
Alaska Natural Organics has attracted $500,000 in start-up money, including $250,000 from the Alaska Accelerator Fund that Hermann helps manage. The fund is an angel investor fund trying to diversify the state’s oil-based economy.
