Almost 200 years ago Thomas Malthus opined about the effects of unchecked population growth. He worried that human populations, which grow exponentially, would eventually crash and go back to subsistence conditions because food production would grow at a linear pace. "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man," he wrote.
Jeremy Grantham believes that we have finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.
For the last hundred years or so, we have cheated that by using fertilizer, phosphorus in particular. Now, just like oil, we are about to reach peak phosphorus production.
Here's a link to
the article in Business Insider. There are lots of charts to bolster Grantham's view.
No comments:
Post a Comment