Oil is getting scarce. OK, no problem, we drive smaller cars.
Water is getting scarce. Food is getting scarce. No problem, we desalinate, we put more land under cultivation.
But: Land is getting scarce. Oops.
From the end of Food Prices Rise, Farmers Respond
Despite the back-to-back increases [in price of commodities like soybeans and corn], the number of acres under cultivation [in the U.S.] is still about six million below the level of a decade ago. The government is not entirely sure why that is happening, but one possibility is that some land has been swallowed up by suburban construction.
Higher demand + inflexible supply = higher prices. The economic equation is so elementary it is a wonder we are not having a more urgent discussion about it.
I suppose the answer is that this will, as always, affect the poor first. Adios, developing world.
Filed under: Uncategorized, commodities, Economics, peak food, peak oil, Predictions, scarcity
Ask Science to develop cheap photovoltaic power.
Ask Science to develop cheap desalinization methods.
Ask Science to develop a method to transmogrify the ever-widening river of shit that flows beneath our sprawling metropoli into farmable dirt.
Farms can then grow up, not out.
Or, just start more wars, thin out the herd.