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Lester Brown vs. Broken Watch
It's no contest. A broken watch is correct twice a day.
Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of abject poverty in the last several decades but trust Lester Brown to see the downside (Brown, of course, is sadly joined by Paul Krugman and neo-cons itching for another cold-war). In his latest book, Brown argues that the Chinese will soon be eating little children. Well, not exactly, but he does think that Chinese eating will cause little children to die. Writing in the Washington Post, Bill McKibben summarizes the Brown argument (which he endorses):
The Chinese, in particular, are constantly converting farmland to factory sites (even as they learn to eat more meat), and they have plenty of American cash stored up to pay for any shortfall. But if they do so, the first casualties will be the world's really poor nations, already reeling from increases in the price of fuel.
Of course this is an old story for Lester Brown who in 1973 said:
The soaring demand for food, spurred by continued population growth and rising affluence, has begun to outrun the productive capacity of the world’s farmers and fishermen. The result has been declining food reserves, skyrocketing food prices, food rationing in three of the world’s most populous countries, intense international competition for exportable food supplies, and export controls on major foodstuffs by the world’s principal food supplier.
Isn't it amazing how rising affluence leads directly to mass starvation? Some people just can't be happy.
To be clear, I do think that issues of food production and demography are important (although what is most important is regional poverty - I have few worries about global food production per se), it's just Lester Brown who should not be taken seriously.
Daily Ablution has some good links on these issues. Comments are open.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on January 2, 2006 at 07:10 AM in Religion | Permalink
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» Doom and Gloom Antidote from rodneyhide.com
The Economist published this piece back in 1997 but it stands today as a good antidote to the prophets of doom and gloom. I especially like this bit about Lester Brown: Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute began predicting in 1973 that populatio... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 2, 2006 1:23:08 PM
» Population And Starvation from Insults Unpunished
... [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 3, 2006 2:44:13 AM
» newsflash: rising wealth causes starvation from asiapundit
Via Marginal Revolution: Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of abject poverty in the last several decades but trust Lester Brown to see the downside (Brown, of course, is sadly joined by Paul Krugman and neo-cons [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 5, 2006 9:45:38 AM
» newsflash: rising wealth causes starvation from asiapundit
Via Marginal Revolution: Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of abject poverty in the last several decades but trust Lester Brown to see the downside (Brown, of course, is sadly joined by Paul Krugman and neo-cons [Read More]
Tracked on Jan 5, 2006 10:55:00 AM
Comments
Industrialization does not take farmland out of production. Farmland fals out of production as farms become more productive and marginal farms are transformed for other use.
In the USA, we produce as much food as we ever have but have less than 70% of the farm acreage we had in the immediate post war period. (can't remember where I read that number, but I think its close)
Posted by: Kyle N at Jan 2, 2006 8:21:10 AM
it gets even better! ;-)
The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer
-- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)
This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century
-- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976
There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it.
-- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)
This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.
-- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976
Posted by: Christopher Meisenzahl at Jan 2, 2006 9:12:34 AM
This is depressing evidence of OUR (economists') failure to make our case to the general public.
Has any group ever been so disastrously wrong the facts, yet so consistently successful at persuading the most educated segments of the public while claiming to be strictly scientific as the population/enviro alarmists? All their main predictions about population trends, food trends, cost of minerals, productivity, global cooling have been wrong. Yet their high priests have money, prestige and the ear of the MSM. In contrast, Intelligent Design is a fount of scientific integrity and positivist excellence (I only slightly exaggerate). It is as if the Flat Earth society dominated the boards of the major science journals.
Frankly, environmenatilists have beaten out socialists when it comes to gulling the "thinking" elites. And there is equivalent to the USSR collapsing to make our case for us.
Posted by: jn at Jan 2, 2006 10:49:18 AM
Sorry, meant to say "There is NO equivalent..."
Posted by: jn at Jan 2, 2006 10:50:44 AM
On a tangent, I was amused to see tilapia, the 'inexpensive' food fish imported by hippies from Chinese communes, selling in my local supermarket for $7.99/lb.
In a food market so driven by trend and counter-trend, who knows how much capacity there will be for basic staples X years from now. We live in a world where chicken wings sometimes sell at a higher price-per-pound than whole chickens ... just because guys in a bar invented a recipe.
Posted by: odograph at Jan 2, 2006 11:28:10 AM
BTW, with respect to "population/enviro alarmists" I'd only point out that we think they're whacko, while at the same time we borrow many of their ideas. It's a bad shape for them really, because they get classified by the subset of their ideas we have not yet accepted.
(my electric company wants me to buy an energy star refrigerator and run compact fluorsecents .. alarmists?)
Posted by: odograph at Jan 2, 2006 11:30:34 AM
It's easy to mock Brown and Erlich. And yet I'm deeply uncomfortable with the free market economist's complacency about current global environmental problems. When the chuckling is over, I'd genuinely be interested to hear Alex's recommended reading for economically savvy yet non-complacent analysis of the global environmental prospect, as China and India follow our consumption path (automobiles, larger homes, and meat).
Posted by: Parke at Jan 2, 2006 1:15:08 PM
Parke,
Richer societies invest in creative solutions to world problems. Just because there is no top-down Kyoto-style plan for global warming, doesn't mean free minds and market will fail to solve the problem.
I would be dollars for donuts that the technological innovations in the next year, inspired more by a bottom line than UN committee, will do more to wean us off fissile fuels than any government organized GHG restrictions.
China and India aren't following the "consumption path". They are following the "escape from premature death" path through growth, and the increased value of technological innovations that come part & parcel. Just look at the amazing number of PhDs created in both countries. That is what happens when minds are (more) free.
And as to the reason why the alarmists have the MSM's ear, well, it goes almost without saying that disaster is good for news.
Posted by: Ivan Kirigin at Jan 2, 2006 4:51:42 PM
They aren't following our consumption path, they're free-riding on our technological solution path. Hardly any of the millions of Chinese who own cell phones ever had a land line ... and they never had to acquire or install the tons of copper required to make them work. Few of them will ever own a vehicle as inefficient as my family's commonplace 1974 Chrysler as they all acquire new cars. How many tons of trees will be "replaced" free of charge by Google?
And which member of the Club of Rome invented CFLs? Calling attention to problems is useful, but the solution normally proposed by the alarmists has already been proven to do more harm than good. Meanwhile, a thousand anonymous inventors and entrepreneurs have already been chipping away at the problems before the best-sellers come out, and none of them gets any credit. In fact, they are usually villified for having profited from their inventions.
Posted by: Eric H at Jan 2, 2006 6:23:17 PM
Don't get too carboard in your stereotypes there Eric. What is "Real Goods" alarmists or entrepreneurs? Both?
We know the whole alt-energy thing has been piloted by moonbeams. The "population/enviro alarmists" have given us a sub-population of early-adopters to test out alternative futures. Now maybe their path will be chosen by the bulk of humanity ... or maybe it will be bass boats and 4x4s for everybody ... time will tell.
Posted by: odograph at Jan 2, 2006 7:45:24 PM
Those of you concerned about the environment and especially about the effects of global warming, might be interested in Michael Crichton's most recent documentary-novel "State of Fear"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0061015733/qid=1136262925/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1724349-9580648?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Posted by: lardo at Jan 2, 2006 11:44:06 PM
I spent a month in China in August-September and the thing I noticed is that there are no fat people in China except tourists. And *children*. Kids there eat a lot of McDonald's and KFC. Remember when our parents told us children are starving in China? Not anymore.
Posted by: Derek Scruggs at Jan 2, 2006 11:48:17 PM
“about current global environmental problems.”
There are no global environmental problems. There are some regional and local problems, insignificant in the larger picture. It’s just a religion, you have convinced yourself with anecdotal evidence, almost never thinking quantitatively.
Since you people are so convinced, why not name ONE environmental problems that has seriously hurt life in America.
The only one they have left is global warming, which probably is good for us. The UN own report cited a 1-2% cost of global GDP if there actually is global warming.
Ooooh. Horrible, compared to say China adding 10% to world GDP?
What is interesting here is that people emotionally distrust markets but without any evidence accept ideas that prosperity is destroying the world.
Think about it. Someone writes a book telling us the world is “collaps”ing, based on 10 marginal societies that supposedly were destroyed by ecological problems. People
Immediately hail it as a masterpiece, and want to change our entire society based on this “threat”.
Meanwhile there were thousands of societies that were destroyed by war. Maybe I should write a book advocating massive military buildup and invading China before they threaten the US. Makes about as much sense as environmentalism.
There is really no room for debate, just like creationistm. The only question is why: leftist ideological strength in academia or some inherent biological propensity in our brains?
Maybe the idea of ever increasing wealth based goes against the world view of hunter. Their resources certainly were more likely to run out compared to electrons and services.
Posted by: Teller at Jan 3, 2006 1:07:55 AM
PS.
Please don’t name factory smoke 40 years ago or horse manure on the streets on colonial Philadelphia. I want one environmental problem that seriously harms people today.
Posted by: Teller at Jan 3, 2006 1:10:54 AM
The whole thing about the impending food shortage is such a joke (as is all of the other environmental "doomsday" crapola). In fact, the world produces too much food. Thats why we have so many disagreements and arguments everytime we have a WTO round of trade talks. There is so much food being produced that everyone wants to protect their farmers from free trade in food.
Posted by: Kurt at Jan 3, 2006 1:21:15 AM
The smog we had forty years ago is gone, thanks to the environmentalists. Now if you talked to someone who has been to China, you would know what it used to be like in America in the fifties. Or just fly to Ciudad Mexico yourself. It's winter, and it's warm in Mexico now...
Posted by: wkwillis at Jan 3, 2006 4:09:44 AM
The Malthusians end up in the press every now and then, but in reality, how many people do you know who aren't university professors who really think there will be mass starvations in the near future?
Posted by: joshg at Jan 3, 2006 8:19:56 AM
Teller, are you familiar with the (former) atlantic cod fisherey? The global decline of ocean fisheries?
You don't have to worry about what books "predict" when you can just read the histories they already tell.
Posted by: odograph at Jan 3, 2006 10:02:55 AM
BTW, in the strict sense of the original article (will people starve?), we might not actually need living oceans. I'm just old fashioned enough to believe future generations will be happier if they have them.
Posted by: odograph at Jan 3, 2006 10:04:29 AM
"The smog we had forty years ago is gone, thanks to the environmentalists."
And the Catch-23 of environmentalism inevitably appears. If environmental disaster occurs, they told us so. If environmental disaster doesn't occur, it's because they warned us, and we listened. Either way, they're right. Nice spot to be in, unless you're in the mood for empirically falsifiable hypotheses -- you know, *science*.
Posted by: Don at Jan 3, 2006 11:09:07 AM
Odo - Neither, they are retailers. They benefit from both the innovators and the alarmists, more from the former than the latter, since the latter are merely a marketing tool for selling the things the former would be making anyhow. BTW, I read that the early, early wave of first adapters of the Prius were about 60% non-treehugging, techno-geeks (back when I was on Toyota's mailing list for the Prius introduction). I started buying CFLs in the first wave for approximately the same reason (little/nothing to do with my concern about Gaia).
Posted by: Eric H at Jan 3, 2006 11:29:44 AM
"more the former than the latter"
Some people have a worldview, and some people have a telescope, to focus on the things convenient to them.
I think the rational, open minded, thing to do is step back and see all these players in motion. If it is about who is "more" ... that's just a little too much of an internet "rwar" isn't it?
Posted by: odograph at Jan 3, 2006 11:52:05 AM
BTW, the mixture of hippies and establishment types pushing biodiesel provide another good history. Focusing on who did "more" would just corrupt the story.
Posted by: odograph at Jan 3, 2006 12:02:40 PM
Teller asked for one environmental problem currently hurting life in America:
Here are my environmental problems:
1. Not enough space in my 3-car garage for all my junk. Could afford a bigger house and garage, but don't want to move the junk.
2. Wife won't let me smoke cigars indoors.
3. Too much tempting food readily available. Couple that with the ability to support my family with a job that does not require physical labor.
Can somebody give me a grant to deal with these pressing issues?
Posted by: Bill Conerly at Jan 3, 2006 6:59:16 PM
1. Clearly the willingness to pay for clean air is lower when you are poor. This is not an environmental problem per se, and had little or nothing to do with the environmental movement.
But I do consider it vindication when you refer me to low GDP Mexico when I ask about environmental problems in high GDP US. Proves our point: no environmental problems in the world, the major problem is lack of economic growth.
2. What is the price of fish? Not very high is it. Fish is not scarce.
Overfishing is hype. One reason is just math, when you reduce the stock of fish the rate of growth goes up dramatically. So even if we reduce the cod to 1%, if you were to stop fishing a couple of years they would recover.
You kids don’t have to worry.
Posted by: Teller at Jan 3, 2006 7:46:17 PM
