Posted on 10/28/2011 8:36:16 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Eat the Old: Could Mass Cannibalism Solve a Future Food Shortage?
The global human population is set to hit 7 billion on Oct. 31, and by century's end it will stand at 10 billion, according to the United Nations. That's a lot more mouths to feed.
There's a very good chance that generating food from traditional farming and livestock practices will not be able to keep pace with this boom. What if a worldwide food shortage were to become so terribly dire that people resorted to eating . . . people?
In such a dreadful event, the most-sensible first choice for meals might seem to be the elderly. After all, a fifth of those 10 billion humans will be at least 65 years old, and less physically able than the rest to contribute to what remains of society.
Mercifully, researchers say that feeding on the old – or, really, anyone – would not solve world hunger. In the short term, eating old people might satisfy the gruesome dilemma of how to feed the population and lower it at the same time. But cannibalism on a global scale could never work in the long term.
"If everyone is eating each other, the species won’t last very long," said James Cole of the University of Southampton 's Center for the Archaeology of Human Origins.
Part of the problem is that humans are just not very meaty compared with cows, pigs, deer and other animals. Even if we heavily supplemented our diet of human "long pork" with grains, we'd have to consume more fellow humans per year than we could ever hope to replace with new babies.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
If we make soup from crackers it does save a step in the process.
Those are nothing more than tech problems. Even the Sahara Desert could be recoverable if we were willing to take the time and money to do so.
If you add to that we could go vertical if we really needed to do so, we could conceivably grow fifty times the amount of food than we currently do now.
I guess they don’t want to tell you about irrigation.
The San Joaquin Valley known as the breadbasket of the world is actually irrigated desert.
That would be an example of a technical solution I mentioned.
When I mentioned going upwards, I was thinking anseering the question of what to do, if we inconcievably ran out of arable land.
Wash ‘em down with a nice chianti.
I’ve also read about the rise of urban gardens, plans for indoor greenhouses and urban homesteading - growing more food even in the city.
Funny thing is that another office at the UN is complaining about obesity in the developling world.
I still want a banner at the UN. For the first time in history, the poor in the world are FAT.
The idea of the example was to remove people from the rest of the continents to show there is nothing close to overpopulation. See the point made was to put all o the people in S America giving you the REST OF THE PLANET TO GROW FOOD ON. So I am not sure what point you are trying to by asking how much farmland in South America there is. But understand you don't need much land to feed a human. It takes less than an acre per person way less if you are efficient with its use.
The USA could easily feed the world with the available farmland and pastureland we have. But even in the area I live in much of the available land is not utilized. When I was a kid everyone in town had a garden of some sort. Now hardly any house in town does.
lol ... Maybe the brain dead 1960s era hippie liberals would be better prospects for the crackerhouse. Better yet, let’s just turn them into jerky! I have heard that the jerkification process renders the meat safe to eat.
Yeh don’t mess with an old man he’ll just kill you. LOL!
The article may be a trial balloon. I’m sure govt,s are considering it. Would solve a few other problems beside food shortages. Burial space is running out, and cremation pollutes, so eating the dead would solve those problems. And if people are offed when they reach 65, there would be no need for Medicare or Social Security.
great toon!
Well ... there is already a trial baloon for Zombie Jerky
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