Posted on 11/26/2012 8:51:24 PM PST by Lorianne
Last year, legendary investor Jeremy Grantham of GMO published a treatise on exploding commodity prices.
He also offered a startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.
Grantham believes the world has undergone a permanent "paradigm shift" in which the number of people on Earth has finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.
The phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever, Grantham says--and the prices of metals, hydrocarbons (oil), and food are now beginning to reflect that.
Grantham believes that the planet can only sustainably support about 1.5 billion humans, versus the 7 billion on Earth right now (heading to 10-12 billion). For all of history except the last 200 years, the human population has been controlled via the limits of the food supply. Grantham thinks that, eventually, the same force will come into play again.
The hope of the optimists, of course, is that science will find a solution to this problem, the way it has for the past 150 years.
Let's hope so.
In the meantime, here's a snapshot of Grantham's argument, along with his key points at the end.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Paging Robert Malthus, please come to the white courtesy telephone.
See Malthus.
When resources run out, we find other solutions. Every single time.
At least the disaster will be of Biblical proportions. I'd hate to just be wiped out by something as mundane as the 1917-18 flu epidemic.
/johnny
No, commodity prices are beginning to reflect the infinite supply of banknotes (they just keep printing more....). It's called inflation.
No problemo. Our ‘lord and savior’ Zero says he’ll lower the Earth’s temperature and ocean levels.
/johnny
(More people die of cold than excess warm). When it's warm, we use fewer resources to survive and flourish.
Pretty much the same argument as Peak Oil which did not include man’s ability to adapt and create new technologies to make use of oil not deposited in traditional oil fields.
It may come some day but it is hundreds of years off and by then necessity will have been the mother of invention once again and we will have new forms of energy etc.
Mel
They’ve been saying this since the 60s.
Enough already.
It always winds up with the populace of Western nations being urged to become celibate while the third world multiplies like jack rabbits on a sex sabbatical.
When it becomes necessary, the traditional population controls will kick in: War, famine and disease.
And also assuming we know with rigorous, reproducible scientific experiment how oil is formed within the earth. What do we know about that process, really? Like Global Warming, we have unproven theories accepted as fact, with significant peer reviews (i.e. circle-fest) supporting this presumed conclusion.
When resources run out, we find other solutions. Every single time.
Like the Easter Islander’s did?
“The phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever”
We have, literally, only scratched the surface.
Ever see the Larson cartoon of two guys fishing and there are several nuclear mushroom clouds in the background, caption, “You know what this means? Screw the limits!” You and me bud.
I guess that would explain why we are paying people not to work.
some people would rather just sit there and itch, than scratch
And we don't know where the East Islanders went when they used up their resources.
Humankind, as a whole, has found solutions, every single time.
/johnny
Yes!
And how about Haiti? And we are mowing down the worlds forests at an ever increasing rate,,,even though they create the oxygen we need. But what the hell, once the forests are gone along with oxygen, we will find other “solutions,” right? We are a fundamentally insane species.
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