Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The trend of the past 50 years or so of globalization has meant that much of the resources are made one place and then transported. So as transport becomes more costly, it is no longer economical to transport food around the world, food prices go up. And if there is some disaster affecting some food, prices go up even more.

And then there is a tendency in some regions that have been getting aid to simply put one's hand out for the aide instead of working to improve ones lot.

Sigh. Even if population really will be in decline, I agree that it may be too late and we are already in trouble. People still want to "get theirs" and the first world doesn't want to give up theirs.

I'm not sure what the answer is but those who want to keep eating nice, should probably make efforts to grow some of their own and building knowledge of how to do so.

TC,

I doubt truer words were ever spoken.

But, I'm going to offer something I definitely cannot prove, that comes from spending almost a life time studying philosophy and economics (Austrian school). Essentially, I've come to a point were I find that there is no rational hope, no reasoned approach, no workable grand scheme to save the world from humankind. So, this thesis, which guarantees nothing, which is also not guaranteed, really comes in the absence of reason. It will not at all sooth the ego and will likely be between threatening and nonsense to many. Never-the-less, I offer this non-philosophy. I suspect that if is graspable at all, it will be purely intuitive.

Ever heard of the Hundredth-monkey effect? By analogy, it's like, at some point we all will or, at least, can just "get it". The implication, if true, is that in life, all we have or have ever had is our nature. And, only that nature that continues to give us life, can perpetuate it. This, of course, is a nature cynically condemned and villianized by just about every religion and political philosophy on earth, claiming that human nature is fatally flawed. And, of course, "they" (who are somehow exempt) are holders of the key to get beyond this nature.

But, to see the truth in what I am suggesting (if it is indeed there), one might find it in Steve Hagan's statement, "there are no mysteries in the universal, nothing is hidden, all is plain to see. And were it not for thought, we would see it.

Upon reading this, one's ego will likely immediately demand, "but what can I possibly do with this?" The answer is nothing, no-thing. Just rest when you are tired, eat when you are hungry, grow your garden and raise your children . . . and what ever else nature demands of you.

Years ago, I was attending a Quaker meeting (I'm not a Quaker, but I love them) and heard something very simple and yet very profound. As the meeting in the silence progressed many spoke at length (sometimes even Quakers get windy). Then it got quiet for a rather long time and a really old man next to me spoke up and said, "God gives us life, she requires of us only that we live it."

Nature demands only that we live life and implies or warns that we cannot and should not attempt to improve upon it. That last seems the source of all our suffering.

Don't try to understand this, we can't. Just look inside and see if you can find it.

m

Heh. That was the cause for me to divorce my last wife. She had the house stuffed with 'stuff'. I finally asked her 'when is enough, enough?'. Her answer of course was 'never'? Packed my bags and left that evening. But that's another story.

I have a few toys but nothing you could not stuff into a 1 car garage. So I understand the idea of life in moderation.

But the thing to keep in mind is we won't have any resources if we spend them globally on the wrong thing. So why do we spend money on the UN panel on population when the situation is taking care of itself? Send all those salaries/monies to relief in critical areas. Same with the Climate Change argument. Copenhagen was a farce. All the money spent was a waste. Diverted to places like Rwanda, Somalia it would have done some good.

Back to Fish....

And talking of fish...

It looks like getting into AP is going to be essential to being able to eat --



source

Very Zen, I assume you are familiar with "the one straw revolution".

Thanks JohnMc, but your line is a chicken and egg argument. What comes first, too many people or not enough resources? Either way we have the same problem. And given that: resources are finite, we are in the midst of a mass extinction event in the natural environment of a scale and speed the world has never experienced, we lose 6 plant food varieties and one animal food variety every month, we have lost 80% of human food biodiversity since the turn of the century, et cetera et cetera, we have a major problem.

Basically the evidence is in, and we humans are the problem. Given that human population is expected to peak at approx. 9 billion in 2050, AND as you state we will be consuming more per capita than we do now - how is that a resource problem? Resources are finite and we are the variable. You cannot expand a finite resource but you can limit the variable.

Having said we can limit the variable, I concede that it is extremely unlikely that we will do this voluntarily. It is much more likely that we will stay within our paradigm of humans as sacrosanct and supreme until we become the planetary equivalent of Easter Islanders.

Just to confuse the issue, and according to the FAO, there is enough food currently being produced on our planet to feed 12.1 billion people. There are huge inefficiencies, much waste and inequitable distribution systems resulting in starvation and malnutrition for millions of people - this will remain the case unless we change what we are doing. One definition of insanity is to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result - this is where we/humanity finds itself.

I saw a video where a potato farmer had to compost and otherwise trash 60% of his crop because it was not cosmetically good enough for the supermarket.. Feeding everyone is not a problem. Just stop being so damn vain and use all the food.

After this years test and AP expansion I know that I can feed my family on 1 acre of land, no problem. Now I just have to learn how to grow crops for seed so I dont have to buy seed every year..

McFarm, you are correct that population is placing huge pressure on the natural and finite resources of the world... and just quite simply isn't sustainable beyond where we currently are... if that...

But as the quote above suggests... there are sufficient (not necessarily sustainable) resources currently available to provide for a population as expected to peak 2050.... but as the quote says....

"inefficiencies, much waste and inequitable distribution systems".... are a the problem... as such it is as much a "resource", or at least a resource allocation problem... as a population number problem...

In terms of sheer sustainability... then it's probably.... BOTH....

A common occurance Dandi... although again it disguises the real story somewhat... he dumped them... because he couldn't get the price he wanted/needed...

If there was a mechanism that could have obtained some value... at the immediate time of harvest... I'm sure he would have taken it...

Population will peak at 9b then decline. But it is a resource problem. Nor do I believe that there is a finite level of resources. There is a finite level of cheap resources and the ingenuity to solve problems with substitute resources. AP is a prime example of using substitutes to have something better than the old technique of dirt farming.

We have a limiting factor and that is energy. But even here we may skip the bullet as solar developments improve and expand.

But we can't be indiscriminate with how we handle it like we did in the past.

JohnMc, we will agree to disagree. The physical resources of this planet are limited by virtue of the fact that they are finite ie. you can add up all the physical components of this world and count them and come to a total figure. You can reconfigure them any number of ways, make better (efficient and effective) use of them, ration them and so on, but at the end of the day they (physical resources) are finite.

On the other hand you concerns about energy are misplaced, as for all intents and purposes (by any meaningful measure relevant to humans) energy is unlimited/infinite. The sun will not stop shinning, the wind stop blowing, the oceans stop moving, the rivers stop running any time soon, and peak hydrogen is never likely to be reached.

The bit of the equation most people lack when it comes to our planet is the concept of carrying capacity. This really surprises me on an AP forum where I would have thought the realisation that no matter how efficient a fixed entity, it has it's limits. To put it another way, no matter how good your AP system, at some point you run out of something (dissolved oxygen, filtration, nitrifying bacteria, grow beds, land, money, etcetera) and production peaks aka carrying capacity is reached. The same is true for this planet, it has a carrying capacity. Sure we could feed 12 billion people, but because the system is finite, something has gotta give. At the moment that something is the biosphere and every other living thing on the planet - hence the environmental mess we are in.

So 9 billion people in 2050 then declining, results in what kind of impoverished planet? Extinctions are forever and what we lose over the next 40 years will not be replaced for millennia - if ever. Which brings me back to the question I first asked; just because we can (feed 9 or 12 billion people), should we (if it will result in more loses and greater environmental disasters)?

The question then McFarm.... is how do we quantify a sustainable "carrying capacity"....

And if that means fewer people.... how do we acheive that... by what means, and by whom???

Who would/could/should make such decisions.... and on behalf of whom??

Capitalism may not save the poor, but it has had a track record of doing more to lift people out of poverty than any other system. And it is financially cost effective to transport the food, considering billions of metric tons of wheat, soy, corn that get shipped all over the world. If it was not cost effective it would not be done and local sources would replace the import.

Rup,

Interesting questions but, ultimately, there are no answers. Or, if there are answer, they only raise more questions.

Essentially, we'll either get it right or we won't. That has been true of every other species to become extinct -- and for the ones that have persisted, e.g., mosquitoes, earthworms . . . We only think we are different and somehow superior because we have the ability to think -- an intellectually self serving and, often, self destructive characteristic.

We can only safely say what will not work. I would generalize to say, nothing at the point of a gun will work. It never has. No law, no gov't will suffice because these institutions are themselves self corrupting. All such solutions to your questions require an "on high" intelligence that doesn't exist in humans (Thomas Jefferson said, "It is often said that man cannot be trusted with the governance of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the governance of others?"). Hence, each solution creates and brings on more problems of a larger and larger proportion. Always has.

I suppose this sounds a bit nihilistic, but it is not. It is just an attempt to recognize what we really have as humans and what we really have not. All we have ever had is our nature and it is either enough or it is not. We'll either survive doing what we do or we won't. All this gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands just adds to the waste of energy.

m

TC,

I think your criticism of capitalism is a little misplaced (unless you really mean fascism*). Complaining about capitalism is like complaining about gravity or the the sky being blue. Capitalism simply states that IF people or organizations have a surplus, that surplus (savings or capital) can be reinvested in order to improve productivity that will further increase a capital surplus -- the capital surplus per capita defining the standard of living. Capitalism says nothing about what we must do with the surpluses, how they are distributed or even that we should have them.

*Fascism, however, is a system of governing the market by a gov't that pretends to regulate the oligarchs who really control the gov't. The end result being that the oligarchs (parasites) gain the privilege of controlling the market for their own benefit, further resulting in a poor use of resources (like now).

And, socialism, for all it high sounding talk of altruism, is just a close cousin of fascism. It uses the same methods of forcefully controlling the market, but it simply extends privilege to a different set of supporters (parasites), further resulting in a poor use of resources(like now).

The characteristics of both of these systems are 1) they use force(typically arbitrarily, capriciously and often nefariously), 2) both always want growth (further resulting in a poor use of resources[like now]), 3) both always die a violent death accompanied by a lot of pain and suffering for the constituents.

m