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- Affordability, Not Scarcity, Is the Real Energy Crisis
- Why Oil Shortages May Bring Lower Prices–and Recession
- China and US Trade Talks: A Solution for Oil Shortages?
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- A New Explanation for Tariffs and Bombings
- Understanding Deglobalization: The Role of Diesel and Jet Fuel
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- Too many promises; too few future physical goods
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Category Archives: Food issues
Why Malthus Got His Forecast Wrong
Most of us have heard that Thomas Malthus made a forecast in 1798 that the world would run short of food. He expected that this would happen because in a world with limited agricultural land, food supply would fail to rise … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications, Food issues
Tagged coal, energy consumption, food supply, Malthus, oil, oil price, peak oil, technology
160 Comments
The Long-Term Tie Between Energy Supply, Population, and the Economy
The tie between energy supply, population, and the economy goes back to the hunter-gatherer period. Hunter-gatherers managed to multiply their population at least 4-fold, and perhaps by as much as 25-fold, by using energy techniques which allowed them to expand … Continue reading
Posted in Alternatives to Oil, Book draft, Food issues, Introductory Post
Tagged coal, deforestation, economy, electricity, energy supply, erosion, GDP, hunter-gatherer, Hydroelectric, oil, peat, petroleum, population, soil fertility, top soil
158 Comments
Peak oil and the third demographic transition: A preliminary model
This is a guest post by Dr. Gary Peters, retired geography professor and author of Population Geography. The growth of the human population cannot continue forever—there is a limit to our numbers, even if we cannot specify what that limit … Continue reading
Posted in Food issues, Planning for the Future
Tagged demographic transition, population
43 Comments
A Look Behind Rising Food Prices: Population Growth; Rising Oil Prices; Weather Events
This is a guest post by Dr. Gary Peters. He is a retired geography professor and author of Population Geography. Rising food prices, crowned by a recent record high spike and chronicled in the graph below, have played a role … Continue reading
