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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
In Limits to Growth, a '70s era tome lauded by both environmentalists and doomsday conspiracy theorists, MIT scientists made a number of predictions about population growth, food production, etc, using the data available at the time – and were immediately lambasted by the media and politicians as being fear-mongering, since they hinted that collapse would likely come in the 2nd half of the 21st century. Recently, investment guy Joachim Klement revisited the predictions, adding data from this century. The results were… not great, with some indicating that we’re living in the peak of human development like literally right this minute.
We currently grow our food for maximum profit on minimal inputs and labor. In many species we are reaching the maximum genetic yield potential under these conditions.
With some heavy investment into irrigation systems, protected culture, and optimal growing methodologies, we can produce 10x our current production on 1/4 of the land area.