There was a worry back in the 1960s and 1970s that mass starvation could reoccur in countries. We still see starvation today in Sudan. Global heating is going to have a severe impact on agriculture production. Without some alternatives, are we perhaps walking into a new period of global food shortages. Maybe factory food production gets us out of that situation, or maybe not. What sort of technological increase will have the equivalent effect of ending the Malthusian Trap in the pre-industrial period for the current situation?
There is also the problem that while modern farming can feed vastly more people than in the past, modern farming also relies on huge quantities of nitrogen based fertilizer that is bad for the soil and the environment over the long run.
Maybe, as long as the impact on ag is not too serious. It really depends on how much an impact of heating has on agriculture, as well as the problems that heating has on populations and what they do and how that impacts ag. When multiple crises hit a civilization, it tends not be survive. Rational technocratic approaches to heating are not being taken. Worse, we are seeing counterproductive political actions being taken. In the US, just look at Florida. A nutty Governor's actions have resulted in ag and construction workers not working. Will we see a shortage of OJ this year? The war in Ukraine has resulted in a major global wheat supply being disrupted. Both these are not heat related. In CA, the lack of cheap water for ag is causing farms to abandon production. Big Ag just keeps sucking down aquifers, but at some point that will end. Better water management will delay catastrophe, but there will need to be significant changes in ag water use in CA to maintain some level of production as it reverts to surface water in a region drying out. What if CA restricts crop types to minimize water use? What if it restricts out of state ag exports? We should beware of hubris in assuming everything will turn out OK. It may not.
Oh , I don't assume everything WILL turnout OK, just that it "easily" can. Price water, price net CO2 emissions, let YIMBYism (cost benefit based land use regulations) prevail, close the fiscal deficit with progressive consumption taxes, increase merit based immigration and you'd got neo-neo Liberal nirvana. :)
Your preacher ancestors (I forget who they were) would have been proud.
But a question re: "Had that upward leap in technology taken place all at once, it would have been vastly more than enough for us to escape from the Malthusian trap. Sixfold higher incomes would have pushed nutrition standards and life expectancy way up and infant mortality way down."
For infant (or even mom) mortality to go "way" down (as opposed to life expectancy going up) don't we need more than improved nutrition standards? It seem like a particular kind of technological advance has to be part of that sixfold technology increase, and since that advance occurred only in the wake of a more than sixfold technological explosion, we're thrown back to asking about the causes of that event. Is a scientific and (eventually) medical revolution endogenous to a multiplication of incomes? If so, what is the multiplier? Or was something else required for things to tip? For me, that's the stumper.
Isn't clean drinking water and sanitation the greatest improvement in reduced mortality? The Romans certainly used aqueducts to bring fresh water into Rome.. Do we know the frequency of cholera outbreaks in ancient Rome vs the 19th century in European cities?
It could be that clean water and sanitation are the decisive factors. I'm willing to be persuaded if you (or someone) can point me to data or a researched hypothesis.
But consider that "sanitation" is a complex construct. Does it include doctors washing their hands? They could have washed their hands from the start - but until the discovery of pathogens they didn't know to wash their hands.
My point isn't to be difficult (I hope) but to ask, "How do we know an all-at-once sixfold increase would have lifted the Malthusian curse? Is there anything that increase would have needed to include to have prevented a new Malthusian trap from emerging at a higher level of population?"
Could you have a society in which people have enough resources that only 1/10 of their income has to go to your 2000-calories-plus-essential-nutrients a day, and yet in which infant and early childhood mortality is still more than 1/3? That is a fascinating question. As I understand it, the consensus is that the four big factors are (1) nutrition, (2), nutrition, (3) prolonged breastfeeding, and (4) basic sanitation; with (5) general wealth and (6) useful nurses the next most important. One data point is that Clark and Hamilton report that between 1250 and 1500 English feudal tenants-in-chief had 1.6 surviving sons—60% above the population average.
Well, Greg Clark is Malthus reincarnated so I take that last number as being read off the gold standard. And the finding jives with the "younger son" problem that I remember reading in Wallace Notestein's "eve of colonization" book way back when I was in college.
From the WHO: "Globally, infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, along with pre-term birth, birth asphyxia and trauma, and congenital anomalies remain the leading causes of death for children under five."
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/children-reducing-mortality The data is mainly for poor countries where mortality remains high. BTW, one doesn't need to know about pathogens to keep clean. Observation over time is sufficient. Behaviors get handed down, like "don't drink the bath water", "wash your hands before eating", etc.
But what is new? You've already told this story, unless you have a new angle on why technology advanced so slowly?
There was a worry back in the 1960s and 1970s that mass starvation could reoccur in countries. We still see starvation today in Sudan. Global heating is going to have a severe impact on agriculture production. Without some alternatives, are we perhaps walking into a new period of global food shortages. Maybe factory food production gets us out of that situation, or maybe not. What sort of technological increase will have the equivalent effect of ending the Malthusian Trap in the pre-industrial period for the current situation?
There is also the problem that while modern farming can feed vastly more people than in the past, modern farming also relies on huge quantities of nitrogen based fertilizer that is bad for the soil and the environment over the long run.
GMO's and better use of water.
Maybe, as long as the impact on ag is not too serious. It really depends on how much an impact of heating has on agriculture, as well as the problems that heating has on populations and what they do and how that impacts ag. When multiple crises hit a civilization, it tends not be survive. Rational technocratic approaches to heating are not being taken. Worse, we are seeing counterproductive political actions being taken. In the US, just look at Florida. A nutty Governor's actions have resulted in ag and construction workers not working. Will we see a shortage of OJ this year? The war in Ukraine has resulted in a major global wheat supply being disrupted. Both these are not heat related. In CA, the lack of cheap water for ag is causing farms to abandon production. Big Ag just keeps sucking down aquifers, but at some point that will end. Better water management will delay catastrophe, but there will need to be significant changes in ag water use in CA to maintain some level of production as it reverts to surface water in a region drying out. What if CA restricts crop types to minimize water use? What if it restricts out of state ag exports? We should beware of hubris in assuming everything will turn out OK. It may not.
Oh , I don't assume everything WILL turnout OK, just that it "easily" can. Price water, price net CO2 emissions, let YIMBYism (cost benefit based land use regulations) prevail, close the fiscal deficit with progressive consumption taxes, increase merit based immigration and you'd got neo-neo Liberal nirvana. :)
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken
Can it be a coincidence that this is today's First Reading?
I have a hunch Elisha "coveted thy neighbor’s wife" and was the reason the woman gave birth to a son despite having an elderly husband.
Your preacher ancestors (I forget who they were) would have been proud.
But a question re: "Had that upward leap in technology taken place all at once, it would have been vastly more than enough for us to escape from the Malthusian trap. Sixfold higher incomes would have pushed nutrition standards and life expectancy way up and infant mortality way down."
For infant (or even mom) mortality to go "way" down (as opposed to life expectancy going up) don't we need more than improved nutrition standards? It seem like a particular kind of technological advance has to be part of that sixfold technology increase, and since that advance occurred only in the wake of a more than sixfold technological explosion, we're thrown back to asking about the causes of that event. Is a scientific and (eventually) medical revolution endogenous to a multiplication of incomes? If so, what is the multiplier? Or was something else required for things to tip? For me, that's the stumper.
Ya, but he almost takes the cake as a rabbi for his explainering about the prophet Micah there!
Isn't clean drinking water and sanitation the greatest improvement in reduced mortality? The Romans certainly used aqueducts to bring fresh water into Rome.. Do we know the frequency of cholera outbreaks in ancient Rome vs the 19th century in European cities?
It could be that clean water and sanitation are the decisive factors. I'm willing to be persuaded if you (or someone) can point me to data or a researched hypothesis.
But consider that "sanitation" is a complex construct. Does it include doctors washing their hands? They could have washed their hands from the start - but until the discovery of pathogens they didn't know to wash their hands.
My point isn't to be difficult (I hope) but to ask, "How do we know an all-at-once sixfold increase would have lifted the Malthusian curse? Is there anything that increase would have needed to include to have prevented a new Malthusian trap from emerging at a higher level of population?"
Could you have a society in which people have enough resources that only 1/10 of their income has to go to your 2000-calories-plus-essential-nutrients a day, and yet in which infant and early childhood mortality is still more than 1/3? That is a fascinating question. As I understand it, the consensus is that the four big factors are (1) nutrition, (2), nutrition, (3) prolonged breastfeeding, and (4) basic sanitation; with (5) general wealth and (6) useful nurses the next most important. One data point is that Clark and Hamilton report that between 1250 and 1500 English feudal tenants-in-chief had 1.6 surviving sons—60% above the population average.
Well, Greg Clark is Malthus reincarnated so I take that last number as being read off the gold standard. And the finding jives with the "younger son" problem that I remember reading in Wallace Notestein's "eve of colonization" book way back when I was in college.
From the WHO: "Globally, infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria, along with pre-term birth, birth asphyxia and trauma, and congenital anomalies remain the leading causes of death for children under five."
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/children-reducing-mortality The data is mainly for poor countries where mortality remains high. BTW, one doesn't need to know about pathogens to keep clean. Observation over time is sufficient. Behaviors get handed down, like "don't drink the bath water", "wash your hands before eating", etc.
When can I pre-ordered?