
Mass starvation is humanity’s fate if we keep flogging the land to death - aviziva
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/11/mass-starvation-humanity-flogging-land-death-earth-food
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erpaa
"I am plagued by visions of starving people seeking to escape from grey
wastes, being beaten back by armed police."

Excellent. But where are they escaping to?

All countries north of 40th parallel are living far beyond their sustenance
level. For example Sweden can maintain population of one million and then the
food must as simple as possible, mostly potatoes.

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erpaa
This fact comes from history. There were mass famines at that population level
around 1000 AD. The reason why vikings started to travel to other countries
murdering and pillaging.

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JPLeRouzic
Actually Vikings invaded much of western Europe as well as Ukraine earlier
starting in 800AD in response to Carolus Magnus proselytism, and it is
contested that they were "murdering and pillaging". Most probably this vision
was propagated by their enemies in the Christian world.

We do not know for the "mass famines", but this time was the Medieval Warm
Period (800–1300). It is thought that between c. 950 and c. 1100 was the
Northern Hemisphere's warmest period since the Roman Warm Period.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age)

~~~
erpaa
Ok. "Oppressed people of Ukraine invited vikings (ie russians) to rule them."
I do not know much history, but this snippet from Putin's speech from 2014
comes to mind.

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petre
The historical reality is quite different.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians#Kievan_Rus'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians#Kievan_Rus')

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mruts
Malthusian fallacy. People have been saying this for centuries. Maybe he can
eat grass, but I think I'll stick to my meat.

~~~
fractallyte
Malthus considered only one very narrow facet of the results of population
growth. There are others - most significantly, ecosystem degradation and
eventual collapse - that _will_ impact humanity.

So it is vital to consider these factors too, rather than recklessly rejecting
the spirit of the argument.

~~~
mruts
I agree that we need to consider those factors. But saying we need to switch
to a plant-based diet is ridiculous. Any "solution" that involves everyone
just changing their behavior (behavior that in some ways defines us as human)
is just flat-out not going to happen.

A real solution is cognizant of human behavior and the tragedy of the commons.
A real solution isn't dependent on every human being lowering his standard of
living. The solution to whale extinction from whaling didn't depend on
everyone using less whale oil, it depended on finding new, better, sources of
energy.

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gnosis89
Ain't that the sad fucking truth of how people think. This is one of the
fallacies of capitalism and consumerism culture. The human ego has grown to
levels that exceed the single planet we live on. We have the tools to find new
and better sources of meat, it's called lab-grown. A simple yet effective
solution, taxing the shit out of real cow meat as well as ocean caught fish
would cause huge falls in demand, and would create opportunity to develop the
lab grown meat technology to ecologically and economically competitive levels.
If eating red meat is actually a higher standard of living, we should treat it
as such. It makes no sense that a double cheese burger is cheaper than a
salad. The same with driving gas guzzlers, tax that shit to hell. Make it
economically painful to consume in those markets which are damaging. That is
the purpose of government because markets don't regulate themselves.

Our primitive tendency to frame actions into nature can be fixed with
education.

If every human being was more aware of how their actions are effecting the
world, which is directly effecting themselves, they would realize their vote
does matter and it does make a difference. THAT's the real issue with the
world right now. People are burying their heads in the sand. Humanity is more
connected than ever before with the internet, yet our disconnect with the
world is greater than ever before. Even a small reduction in eating meat by
everyone, especially red meat, would have huge impacts on the environment.

We need to reframe what higher standard of living really means.

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growlist
> By the middle of this century there will be two or three billion more people
> on Earth

..this is only inevitable if we choose to make it so. The laissez-faire
approach to population growth prioritises sparing the feelings of current
liberal observers over the happiness of the future inhabitants of earth and
the quality of the environment. Whatever mitigation measures we take, a global
population of 12 billion are inevitably going to have far nastier lives than 3
billion could.

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partycoder
Invest in soylent green.

