# Are we collectively up shit creek? (About, well, everything) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 21, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416 "2006-07-21T00:14:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/61 "2006-07-25T07:20:57Z")
**xtisme** , \*\*Case Sensitive \*\* and **BrainGlutton** , you all make very valid points. The point I’m trying to make is that we cannot rely on technology _only_, and I used arable land as a counter, one of numerous available, and a number of which you very astutely raised. Warlording, dictatorships etc are all very salient factors, agreed. And as far as South Africa is concerned, yes, we don’t have food shortages, but we certainly have water shortages, and in fact we import water from Lesotho, which might explain why we are able to sustain a population of R48 million on only 14 million ha of arable land. The over-riding point I was trying to make goes back to what **Baldwin** alluded to, overpopulation. I don’t think we can escape the fact that, technology, warlords and Mugabes aside, at some stage the number of people will exceed the carrying capacity of the land. Africa’s problems are indeed complex and many, and I concede I was probably being overly simplistic by using only arable land as an example. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/62 "2006-07-25T17:44:42Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Yeah, shit looks fucked up, but it ain’t all bad. > [@loopydude](#): > > We’ve got a bona fide dipshit in the White House Only for two more years. [/quote] Oh yeah? What if the Dems run Hillary and the Pubs run Jeb? I don’t have a particular problem with Hillary Clinton; it’s just that I don’t think she’s electable. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/63 "2006-07-25T17:54:11Z")
[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis] Africa’s problems are indeed complex and many, and I concede I was probably being overly simplistic by using only arable land as an example. [/QUOTE] In one of my first threads on the Dope, I asked if it was truly worthwhile it to send money to Africa, or, at least, any part of sub-Saharan West Africa. The reason I asked was to help digest a conversation I’d had with a former Peace Corps volunteer, who’d seen firsthand the misappropriation and waste of aid. According to her, her region was essentially a feudal realm run by thugs who had little interest in improving the lot those who were, for all purposes, their serfs. They took what they wished to enrich themselves and their henchmen, let a trickle through to maintain the pretense of humanity, and the rest was left to rot. My guess is much of Africa could be fed easily if the leaders in Africa wanted it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/64 "2006-07-26T07:05:02Z")
[QUOTE=Loopydude] My guess is much of Africa could be fed easily if the leaders in Africa wanted it to be. [/QUOTE] Absolutely. If you’re interested, try “The State of Africa” by Martin Meredith. Mind bending stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/65 "2006-07-28T16:34:01Z")
I’ve read some of the Peak Oil stuff on the web, and I have to say it’s seriously scary stuff. Sure we had a somewhat similar situation in the Seventies, and I remember hearing that the natural gas would run out in the mid Eighties, and that didn’t happen. What’s different this time around is that worldwide production of fossil fuel seems to declining, or about to do so, just while several developing countries with huge populations are becoming industrial powers. While I don’t think we’ll see the end of industrial civilization, I do think there will be a lot of retrenchment and lowering of expectations. In this context it’s discouraging to recall this fact: Traditionally it’s said that the Roman Empire in the West fell in 476 CE, but that fact almost always comes with the caveat that this date didn’t represent a sudden and final collapse of Western civilization, like a curtain being drawn or a light switched off. Indeed, we often hear that there was no Fall of Rome as a single, isolated event. I disagree. For me, the Fall of Rome, at least, of the City of Rome, was some seventy years later when some barbarian invader or other cut the acqueducts, and the city no longer had running water. And it was never repaired, AFAIK. You’d think they could have sent out a work crew with a few wagonloads of morter and masonry, yet they didn’t do it. Anyone could see that having water flow into the City was a worthwhile endeavor, but nobody cared enough to fix the acqueducts. That’s the aspect of human nature that I find most disquieting with regard to the future that we all face. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/66 "2006-07-28T22:06:37Z")
We’re already pulling more seafood out of the ocean than is being replaced. I don’t think piling on three billion more people is going to help. I really expect the population explosion to be curbed by famine, war and plague long before it has time to level off on its own. Per capita oil production peaked back in the 1970’s; not likely to improve. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/67 "2006-07-28T23:10:15Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] I’ve read some of the Peak Oil stuff on the web, and I have to say it’s seriously scary stuff. [/QUOTE] Peak Oil had slipped my mind. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/68 "2006-07-29T04:12:56Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] We’re already pulling more seafood out of the ocean than is being replaced. I don’t think piling on three billion more people is going to help. I really expect the population explosion to be curbed by famine, war and plague long before it has time to level off on its own. Per capita oil production peaked back in the 1970’s; not likely to improve. [/QUOTE] And yet, despite your wild prognostications we produce more food today with fewer people being involved in food production than we ever have. Food is also cheaper than it has ever been in real dollars. The amount of farmland we need to grow our food has been shrinking, and we’ve taken to subsidizing farmers to keep them going rather than downsize the agricultural industry further. The only reason we’re overfishing is because of a market failure - no one ‘owns’ the fish, so there’s no incentive to conserve them. In almost every other area of food production, our potential supply has outstripped increased demand. Whatever the carrying capacity of the Earth is, it’s a hell of a lot more than 9 billion people. If we had to, we could feed many times that number. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416/69 "2006-07-31T02:30:44Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] I’ve read some of the Peak Oil stuff on the web, and I have to say it’s seriously scary stuff. [/QUOTE] Bear in mind, however, the “peak” isn’t a point at which running out of oil is imminent. It’s the point after which we start running out **very, very gradually,** in that henceforth it costs more and more to extract every remaining barrel from the ground. But extraction and refining technology do keep improving, and a higher price for oil means that forms of petroleum that once could not be profitably extracted and refined – e.g., Canada’s tar sands, or various reserves of “heavy crude” – now can be. So the ultimate collapse of the petroleum-based world economy, while it is inevitable, might be staved off for decades yet (giving us time to develop alternative transportation technologies such as hydrogen-powered cars – assuming such alternatives are even **possible,** which they might not be; the laws of physics do not respond to market demands). Of course, just because we **can** get all that oil out of the ground and burn it doesn’t mean we **should.** There’s still air quality and the anthropogenic climate change thing, y’know? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-collectively-up-shit-creek-about-well-everything/365416.md?page=3)