# The 1960s Food Shortage & Overpopulation Scare? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 15, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032 "2016-09-15T19:45:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/41 "2016-09-17T19:17:16Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So you are saying that a policy of “We’re going to run low on oil but there’s no need to think about it” worked? Hm. That’s right, Shodan. The problem is we have a finite amount of oil. And the solution is we should consume it faster. Another problem solved by not thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/42 "2016-09-17T19:21:59Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I also recommend 60’s contemporary - Harry Harrison’s “Make Room, Make Room”, which was turned into the bizarre movie “Soylent Green”. However, the 60’s apocalyptic vision of overpopulation in North America simply did not and will not happen. Harrison was hardly the only writer saying this - in fact I think it is fair to say that the consensus sf view was that 2000 would be a year of pollution, overpopulation and food shortages. As for the OP, I hardly think it is correct to say hippies were the ones worried about this. I don’t remember real hippies caring at all. Now, if you consider people like Isaac Asimov hippies on the other hand … ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/43 "2016-09-17T19:31:54Z")
But then some scientists are saying now that their is no finite amount of petroleum and that it is NOT a “fossil fuel” made up of dinosaur bones but a product of a hydrocarbon process that occurs naturally in the earths deep regions. That’s why old oil fields, long ago thought pumped out, are still pumping and new oil reserves are constantly being found. I dont have all the links on this issue. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/44 "2016-09-17T20:41:49Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > But then some scientists are saying now that their is no finite amount of petroleum and that it is NOT a “fossil fuel” made up of dinosaur bones but a product of a hydrocarbon process that occurs naturally in the earths deep regions. Any scientist who says _no_ oil is biological in origin is an idiot. we have ample evidence that it is. Some petroleum is abiogenic, we have some evidence for that, too. And scientists have been saying petroleum is abiogenic since the 1850s. There’s nothing new about it, only the proposed mechanism. Before the 2009 round, the last big push was Soviet scientists in the 50s. Given the state of Soviet science at the time (Lysenkoism, anyone?) it wasn’t really believable then, either. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/45 "2016-09-18T03:54:05Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > Although this is before my time, I do recall seeing clips of hippies from the 1960s concerned about overpopulation and mass food shortages. Recently, I was speaking to an economics major who said “yeah, that was our [economists’] doomsday prediction, but people persevere. They always persevere.” So, what happened to solve this? And, where did all the extra food come from?" > [@fiddlesticks](#): > > See [The Population Bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb) for what those hippies were all concerned about. The Population Bomb is a good citation. Ehrlich went on to write [Limits to Growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth). _Limits_ was widely panned by economists: basically it was thought to be a model of the economy which lacked any notion of pricing or substitution. In other words it was junk. Economists didn’t deny that the world was going to hell in a handbasket (though it wasn’t). They just claimed that Ehrlich’s model was close to useless as a way of thinking about it. Discussion: ["Global economic collapse" by 2030? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=650839) > [@Little Nemo](#): > > So there’s two policies on the future of oil: “We’re going to run low on oil someday and we should be making plans for that” and “We’re going to run low on oil someday but there’s no need to think about that”. Policy #2 is defensible. Show that there are low and high cost sources of oil, then assert that higher prices oil will lead to ordinary market adjustments ending with electric cars. So we don’t need to think about it because the market will handle the problem. I don’t agree with that by the way (at all), but it’s more defensible than Ehrlich’s effort. (Which, to be clear, is not crackpot stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/46 "2016-09-18T19:12:50Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > . > > Instead of pointing fingers we should be helping them push through this process, particularly focusing on countries where the death rate is falling quickly but the birth rate remains high. > Improved education and opportunities for women are the key factors in this. I agree entirely; Africa’s well-being is, or should be, of the highest priority. But it is difficult to convince many people in the West of this fact. It is also difficult to be proactive in these matters without being paternalistic or insensitive. Colonialism was a failure; we can’t expect cultural imperialism to be any better. ---
**Author:** ![joema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@joema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joema)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/47 "2016-09-19T00:25:00Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > …with all historical worries, such as this thread was started about, the fact that people DID become concerned in advance of the problem actually being upon us, often was WHY the problem never did materialize: people woried, they planned, they acted in advance, and they PREVENTED the problem from occurring… Actually the technical and productivity advances which prevented the 1960s apocalyptic predictions of food shortages (including within the US) were well underway by then. All the worrying and haranguing wasn’t what prevented this – the remedies were already in motion. This is simply a matter of history, which was already obvious by the 1960s. The doom and gloom writers in the 1960s were either uninformed or intentionally misleading. The trends were obvious in the below data, much of which was available by the 1960s. US Agricultural Output, 1880-2004: [http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u496/images/2012/1120/08-agg-agri-output-input-1880-2004.jpg](http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u496/images/2012/1120/08-agg-agri-output-input-1880-2004.jpg) History of World Hunger and Food Provision: [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/slides/hunger-and-food-provision/#/title-slide) ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/48 "2021-10-01T01:19:21Z")
> **[Can the World Get Along Without Natural Resources? – Economics from the Top Down](https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/06/18/can-the-world-get-along-without-natural-resources/)** > > I dissect how neoclassical economics treats (neglects) natural resources, and discuss ways to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/49 "2021-10-01T01:40:36Z")
[Moderating] @ralfy , since you apparently have nothing to say, here’s your chance to not say it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2021, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1960s-food-shortage-overpopulation-scare/766032/50 "2021-10-01T01:40:49Z")
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