"before we are in the grip of actual dearth the chemist will step in and postpone the day of famine to so distant a period that we and our sons and grandsons may legitimately live without undue solicitude for the future."
Chemical fertilizers and improved cultivars did indeed postpone the day of famine such that the grandchildren could legitimately live without undue solicitude for their own children (Boomers) and grandchildren (Millennials).
And during this time, the long-term solution has appeared, fertility decline so that the projected 7 billion in 2000 and its extrapolation to 50 billion in 2100 did not materialize. It now looks like population will peak at less than 20% higher than today's level in the second half of the century.
Famine avoided.
When I was a kid in the early seventies I thought we might go through a sticky bit around 2010, but by the time I was in my 20's I had learned about the Green Revolution and the demographic transition and no longer thought that.
Wow, what a fascinating historical analysis! I had no idea a whole 1% of the world's energy usage is dedicated to producing fertilizer.
This "pessimism of the intellect" combined with "optimism of the will" is a perspective we desperately need right now. It's clear from your examples that we all owe our lives to a series of innovations without which the human race would have stagnated long ago. In the present time, it feels like pessimists are seen as highly intelligent, whereas optimists are seen as either ignorant or disingenuous. I wonder how historically widespread this general perception is, but it does seem like the solution is to abandon the false dichotomy of optimism vs. pessimism altogether.
Given how endemic that dichotomy has become among internet culture, do you have any potential solutions in mind for instilling "solutionism" into online discourse?
Not only did we dodge this bullet, but we created another one. According to some estimates, we produce 3000 kCal of food/day/person globally, which is about a third more than what we actually need. So while we talk about how overpopulation is horrible and we can't feed enough people, we could currently feed 12 billion if the distribution was fair. (Although from an environmental point of view, I think it would make much more sense to produce less food, but that's another topic.)
Crooke was right:
"before we are in the grip of actual dearth the chemist will step in and postpone the day of famine to so distant a period that we and our sons and grandsons may legitimately live without undue solicitude for the future."
Chemical fertilizers and improved cultivars did indeed postpone the day of famine such that the grandchildren could legitimately live without undue solicitude for their own children (Boomers) and grandchildren (Millennials).
And during this time, the long-term solution has appeared, fertility decline so that the projected 7 billion in 2000 and its extrapolation to 50 billion in 2100 did not materialize. It now looks like population will peak at less than 20% higher than today's level in the second half of the century.
Famine avoided.
When I was a kid in the early seventies I thought we might go through a sticky bit around 2010, but by the time I was in my 20's I had learned about the Green Revolution and the demographic transition and no longer thought that.
Wow, what a fascinating historical analysis! I had no idea a whole 1% of the world's energy usage is dedicated to producing fertilizer.
This "pessimism of the intellect" combined with "optimism of the will" is a perspective we desperately need right now. It's clear from your examples that we all owe our lives to a series of innovations without which the human race would have stagnated long ago. In the present time, it feels like pessimists are seen as highly intelligent, whereas optimists are seen as either ignorant or disingenuous. I wonder how historically widespread this general perception is, but it does seem like the solution is to abandon the false dichotomy of optimism vs. pessimism altogether.
Given how endemic that dichotomy has become among internet culture, do you have any potential solutions in mind for instilling "solutionism" into online discourse?
Not only did we dodge this bullet, but we created another one. According to some estimates, we produce 3000 kCal of food/day/person globally, which is about a third more than what we actually need. So while we talk about how overpopulation is horrible and we can't feed enough people, we could currently feed 12 billion if the distribution was fair. (Although from an environmental point of view, I think it would make much more sense to produce less food, but that's another topic.)
https://youtu.be/5VrbA1zzRSo?si=DqKSXKE3rWWlmUDZ
You might want to check this jason