Discussion of this topic will include:
Food and Renewable
Resources
Gene Schroder, Ph.D
Resource Classifications
• Renewable - Nonrenewable
– sunlight, fresh water - petroleum, minerals
• Essential - Substitutable
– Is
I it needed?
d d? A
Are th
there substitutes?
b tit t ?
• How would you classify these resources?
• wood, copper, top soil, petroleum, fresh water,
stratospheric ozone, species diversity
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resource classifications
status of renewable resources
status of world food supplies
factors limiting food production
potential for increasing food production
food aid policies
Resource Abundance
• Quantities of most non-renewables are
great. (minerals)
• Water, forests, and ocean fisheries are
examples of renewable resources whose
use exceeds the rate of renewal in many
places.
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“The Solution to Pollution is Dilution”
• We can abuse the natural ability of
biogeochemical processes to absorb
waste (e.g., wetlands, the atmosphere).
• Safe rate of discharge is determined by
dynamics of the biogeochemical
processes involved and the sensitivity of
the ecosystem.
Limits to Food Production
Food Resources
• Nutrition problems often result from poor food distribution
rather than inadequate food production.
• Between 1950 and 1990 cereal grain production
increased 2.6 fold, while human populations increased
2 1 fold
2.1
fold.
• Since 1984 per capita grain production has declined.
• Meat production continues to climb.
• Major commercial fisheries are pushed to limits.
Desertification
• Weather
• Arable land
– urbanization
– Soil fertility is lost due to:
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erosion
desertification
salinization
water logging
Irrigation - Fertilization
Pests
Storage and Transportation
Capital and Infrastructure
• Developing economies in competition with developed
economies
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Salinization
Salinization
Salinization
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Future Prospects are Uncertain
“It seems prudent to evaluate the problem of
sustainability for selfish, myopic people who are
poorly organized politically, socially and
economically”. - Gretchen Daily
Future Prospects are Uncertain
“There is, indeed, little justification for counting on
technological miracles to accommodate the
billions more people soon to crowd the planet
when the vast majority of the current population
subsists under conditions that no one reading
this article would voluntarily accept.” - Gretchen
Daily
Future Prospects are Uncertain
“Tragedy of the Commons”
“We have fished it (N. America) out, trapped it out,
“What is common to many is taken least
care of, for all men have greater regard for
what is their own than for what they
possess in common with others
others.”
- Aristotle
shot it out, cut it out, drilled it out, mined it out except for coal. While we have plowed some of
it to ruin, a great deal of fine cropland remains.
About all that is left in great abundance is coal
and cropland”. -Daniel Luten
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“Tragedy of the Commons”
“Tragedy of the Commons”
• “It is fair to say that most people who
anguish over the population problem are
trying to find a way to avoid the evils of
overpopulation without relinquishing any of
the privileges they now enjoy”
• What problem is Hardin addressing in this
essay?
• What approach to a solution does he
advocate?
• Do you agree with him?
– "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett
Hardin, Science, 162(1968):1243-1248.
Living on a Lifeboat
• “The generous attitude of all too many
people results in asserting inalienable
rights while ignoring or denying matching
responsibilities ”
responsibilities.
Living on a Lifeboat
• What problem is Hardin addressing in this
essay?
• What approach to a solution does he
advocate?
• Do you agree with him?
– Hardin, G., "Living on a Lifeboat", BioScience,
24(10), 561-568, 1974.
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