Avoiding a 'Soylent Green' Future

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I was reading this article and reminded me of this funny comic I saw:
http://redneckzombie.com/2008/08/little-green-wafers/

Jonah of SC 10:18PM August 12, 2008

Peak oil is here--I don't share Mr. Becker's optimism. His analysis is flawed because all food production is dependent on petroleum and oil based products. It is not taking more than a barrel of oil to find and produce a barrel of oil--how long can the world use more energy to find less energy? Food production is very very energy intensive--the average meal travels 1,500 miles from field to table. It is not as simple as Mr. Becker makes it sound--we are in a reall crisis and we need to all WAKE UP very quickly.
How many people are going to give up their houses and how many businesses and stores will be displaced to convert them back into farm land? I don't think this is realistic in a world where the population is increasing so quickly--the opposite is true: more and more land will be used for dwellings and less land will be available for farming. Existing land is quickly being depleted of minerals like magnesium, chromium, and selenium, which is increasing obesity and cancer rates, mostly due to overuse of cheap petroleum based fertilizers. NO--Mr. Becker, you are dead wrong--we are in for a long haul!!!

Dr. Carl S. Hale of IN 11:23PM June 11, 2008

HAPPY VALLEY FUNERAL HOME - Proudly announces that they are now a authorized dealer for SOYLENT GREEN…
Please Note:
Happy Valley funeral home as of May 1st will not be allowed to hold body viewings anymore due to local health restictions…have a happy day…

TomK of MI 2:14PM May 11, 2008

DIRECTORS - PRODUCERS - WRITERS LISTEN UP! HERE IS A SURE FIRE IDEA for a movie hit. A remake of Soylent Green, except the surprise ending is that they have found a new energy fuel source that turns out, at the end, to be made of dead human bodies.
Is this a winner, or what?!

bobby bear of CA 10:46PM May 05, 2008

Sometimes I wonder if economists can do simple math.
It's the belief that "they" will find a solution to all this before it's too late that got us to this point in the first place. We have a finite amount of everything and it looks like terra-forming and farming Mars might be a little ways off so exactly where is all of this unlimited resource supposed to come from? Perhaps some ingenious person will figure out a way to extract the needed raw materials from their rectum?

Joe R of CA 2:22PM April 26, 2008

James' several days worth of silence here after having his flawed non-analysis demolished is rather telling. Still waiting for answers to our questions, James.

David Arenap of AL 11:23AM April 26, 2008

FOOD AND FUEL COMPETE FOR LAND
From Chapter 2. Beyond the Oil Peak
Historically, the world's farmers produced food, feed, and fiber. Today they are starting to produce fuel as well. Since nearly everything we eat can be converted into automotive fuel, the high price of oil is becoming the support price for farm products. It is also determining the price of food. On any given day there are now two groups of buyers in world commodity markets: one representing food processors and another representing biofuel producers. The line between the food and fuel economies has suddenly blurred as service stations compete with supermarkets for the same commodities.
full:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2ch2_ss5.htm
Table of Contents:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm
Lester R. Brown. 2006. Plan B 2.0. W.W. Norton & Co., NY.

Mike in Austin of TX 7:23PM April 25, 2008

Well, now that you've created a headline or two without any real content, let me see..
You're probably right about no peak energy. You're probably NOT right about tapping into it without economic crisis first and economic termoil until a new order has been constructed.
And now to Gary Becker: His comments on food prices vs. oil prices work in the ivory towers. Of course the reasons for food prices are not the same reasons for high oil prices.
Funny: The market doesn't care.
It is going to drive the prices in both of them up until there is an overabundance. Obviously a simple "ballance" in a rising market (see oil) won't stop the rise. The market also doesn't care if that takes soyet green, 5.5 billion deaths or just plane mountains of butter in the Midwest. When "the markets" decide it is time to raise prices, gold will rise, oil will rise, food will rise - and anything else that can be driven up...
One problem: If the price of oil goes high enough and fast enough, we will most certainly turn our food production into ethanol (or whatever), meaning that there is an almost direct corelation between food and oil.
Don't you think??

GermanDom 3:44PM April 25, 2008

I was going to pile on with a long rebuttal but it looks like the posters above have done it already.
This kind of 'magical thinking' is one of the reasons why people don't take economists seriously. How can there be infinite resources on a finite planet? This is akin to a belief that the Tooth Fairy will save us.

Z K of CA 9:50AM April 25, 2008

"Peak oil? Maybe. Peak energy? No way."
Okay, so pray tell us, James, where this sudden energy bonanza is going to come from? Biofuels? A net energy loss (you use more energy to produce biofuel than you get out of burning it) and the farming, manufacture and distillation of said "fuel" accelerates depletion of petroleum. Wind or solar? Both rely on a platform of petroleum to manufacture and move the equipment. In other words, you could install wind farms all over the planet, but what happens 10, 15, 25 years from now when the turbines need maintenance or need to be replaced? Nuclear? Not unless our nation gets started in a crash program building lots of plants lickety-split (and this still doesn't address fuel for vehicles that need a fuel to move), plus there doesn't seem to be the political will to build reactors in all of our backyards.
"Persistent high and climbing prices of grains and other foods will induce conversion of some of this land back to farming."
Sure, and that's already happening, even in unexpected (and somewhat desperate) forms like suburbanites tearing up their lawns to plant food. But you ignore the pending end of the "green revolution" of cheap petroleum that has made massive quantities of cheap food available.
"Higher food prices will induce an increase in productivity in developing nations by encouraging greater use of machinery, fertilizers, and other forms of capital."
And what will fuel that machinery? And what will be the feedstock for the fertilizer? And what is this mysterious "other form of capital" not identified? Surely you are aware that petroleum in one form or another fuels tractors, trucks, tilling machines, combines, harvesters, irrigation equipment and the like? How does that work at $120 a barrel? $130 a barrel? $140 a barrel? And surely you are aware that standard NPK fertilizer that has left so much farmland essentially barren is produced from natural gas feedstock? And surely you are aware that natural gas -- like oil -- is either at its peak or already past?
How could you not address these fundamental points? Perhaps you can't.

David Arenap of AL 1:36AM April 25, 2008