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Dr. Whatsforlunch or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ChemicalsSome rationally optimistic thoughts from Matt Ridley are in this video. Consider this: when we compare the farm yields of the 1960s to the yields at the end of the 1990s, we find that conventional (aka intensive) farming has, in effect, saved 44% of earth’s land from going under the plow.
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Good little vid that is basically right on though I would point out a caveat:
1. It is also possible that intensive farming led to the increase in population and that without the food availability the human population could have expanded at the rate it did.
I agree very much with the stat that wealthier (and subsequently more educated populations) have smaller families so improving living and education standards for poorer countries is the best way to limit population growth.
True. Mostly the population rose not because we started breeding like rabbits, rather we stopped dying like flies. So, yes, improved nutrition and access to adequate food supplies led to the increase. With the knowledge that their children would live to maturity, couples (not all of course) didn’t need to has as many and began having fewer. The rate has been plummeting since 1955-1965.
But I’m not completely convinced the food supply is the major factor, countries such as China and India have been over-populated for hundreds (thousands?) of years despite having little food and famines occurring frequently.
Bringing population rate under control seems to happen when people are wealthy enough that the economy moves from poverty subsistence agriculture to more prosperous trades and services.