>
> Doesn't it give you a bit of an odd feeling to hope that most other peopl
> e
> keep eating crap? It does me.



I don't hope it. I just expect it.....But I also expect to see some real
advances in  good eating. I really think that people don't have to eat paleo
to get most of the benefits.  As you said, eating loads of soybeans or oil
may not be great for you, but replacing the worst oils with better ones will
help a lot. Similarly, going from the worst grains to the 'best' will help,
though we may find that these grains have other problems we didn't know
about when they were not staples. The general trend is already for people to
eat more protein as they get better off, and fat too.


> In the near term that could indeed happen, as happened when demand for
>
> Atkins products increased and large supermarkets started carrying them,
>
> which previously were only available in small, expensive specialty stores



I remember when  suddenly oats were the 'heart healthy' fad. Suddenly, in
just one year the price of oats shot up and oat products appeared
everywhere, lots of new oat breakfast cereals. The next year farmers planted
a lot more oats, and also the fad tapered off and oats were no longer
expensive. So these changes can happen very quickly if the media gets behind
them.

.
>
> That's good to hear, and I too have seen reports along those lines, but
>
> there is a long way to go to get from 6.5 or more billion down to 600
> million or less. It ain't happening in our lifetime.



But with the pressure easing off, we will have an easier time adapting to
the population.



>If I
> >had a crusade, it would be to help jump poor countries over that level i
> n
> as
> >short a time as possible, to limit the damage as much as possible.
> >========================
> =========================
> ========================
>
> Not sure about this. China is developing rapidly, leapfrogging ahead, and
>
> they are reportedly experiencing a massive increase in pollution.




Normal at the early expansionist stage. Europe was doing that in the 60s
just as the US was starting to think about cleaning up. Now Europe is
getting pretty clean, and Japan and other countries are starting to clean
up.  I am still hoping that China and India can make the jump faster than we
did, using our tech to skip some of the intermediate stages.  That initial
stage is when most of the species loss occurs. It makes me sad to think of
all the species we must have lost when the plains states were all pretty
much completely plowed under, marshes drained etc. Of course they have a lot
more population pressure now than the US or Europe ever did, so it won't be
easy.



In another post, someone mentioned the idea that it takes ten calories of
energy to produce one calorie of food energy. I have to say I don't
understand the comparison. We can't eat oil, so a calorie of food can not be
measured against a calorie of oil. Might as well say it takes X number of
pounds of steel to produce a bushel of wheat. Who cares? We don't eat steel.
That is worse than and apples to oranges comparison, it is an apples to
stones comparison.

It is a different question entirely whether we have enough oil or whatever
fuel we use to run out society and produce food. Eventually, like it or not,
we will most likely be using some sort of nuclear power to fuel everything.
When oil gets too expensive, the switch will be made.

 When the cities get cold, the eco-fantics who live there will be the first
to proclaim the wonderous benefits if nuclear power, I have no doubt at all!