On Sat, 31 May 2008 08:28:41 -0600, Ashley Moran <[log in to unmask]>  
wrote:

> I sometimes wonder just how many people ultimately control 80% of the  
> food supply in west.  There's definitely a move to better, more  
> sustainable farming but I expect a a recession would put and end to  
> that, and force people back onto subsidised grains.
I think you'll see more people growing their own food.  Suburban  
development
and shopping malls have covered over much of the prime farmland in this  
country.  But in case of suburbs, most of the land is still there.  It is  
just wasted in growing
grass, with massive inputs of chemicals and effort.  Countries which have  
crashed
economically, in recent times, have turned to microfarming: Cuba and the  
former
Soviet Union come to mind.  Microplots, carefully tended, can produce far  
more food with less resource input (other than human labor) than any other  
form of agriculture.
If you're hungry and can't afford to buy vegetables, suddenly that grass  
doesn't look like such a good idea.

>> Oh, I believe that.  It's the grain-fed populations that are easier to  
>> control, especially the sugar-soaked grain-fed ones.
> If this is the case though, why?
> What about the rest of the people though?  Is it about control?  I  
> suspect it's more about greed.  Sugar-coated cornflakes cost nothing to  
> produce, return huge profits, and are highly addictive.  They can also  
> be branded and marketed, which is a lot harder with whole foods.
That's all true, but I'm thinking in terms of the physiological effect of
high grains and sugars: "comfort foods" which tend to make people feel  
comfortable
with whatever situation they are in.

> It's clear something will change but I was expecting it to happen much  
> later.  Why you think it will happen that soon?
If you take the flat production curve and the steep growth in demand, basic
economics would say the price will soar up, as we have seen in the last  
year.
This affects every part of our industrial society.  We eat oil, we wear  
oil,
we drive oil around to get places (using oil as fuel), our computers are  
made of oil,
our houses are heated with oil (nat gas/coal: same thing), our domestic  
water and electricity mostly arrives at our homes thanks to oil/nat  
gas/coal.  If I took away
everything you have that is either made from oil, its raw materials  
extracted or grown by use of oil, or transported to you by the use of oil,  
you'd be sitting out there in
the woods, naked in all likelihood, with Ray Audette's sharp stick in your  
hands.

On the subject of the graph:
If you look at the period from, say, 1850 to 2000, worldwide, you eliminate
some of the smaller discrepancies.  I was not able (in a few minutes) to  
find
this graph that I remember seeing, but here are some numbers (from  
Wikipedia):

World Population in millions:
1800:  978
1850: 1262
1900: 1650
1950: 2521
1999: 5978

Global fossil fuel emissions (read off the graph  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_to_Y2004.png):
1800: ~50
1850: ~100
1900: ~500
1950: ~1600
1999: ~6600

Not a perfect fit, but the trend is definitely there, especially in the  
period
 from 1950 to 1999.

>> Same thing: The quest for bigger corporations and bigger profits and  
>> more control
>> is also subject to backfire; eventually we'll squeeze out from under  
>> them and
>> find more humane ways to live.  This is true whether we are actually at  
>> Peak
>> Oil, or are just suffering from corporate/governmental greed run amok.
> Well there is no doubt at the latter :)  The former will just make it  
> worse.  I'm not so hopeful that we'll get away from the corporation- 
> based society we've got now though.
If we lose predictable electrical power, the corporations are going to have
a very hard time surviving.  Even a failure of the banking and credit  
system
(which is looming on the horizon) would have them all falling over like  
dominoes.
These giants are not as indestructible as you think.  Corporations have  
the rights
of humans, but not the responsibilities (that's why they're called  
"limited liability
corporations").  I know it would be hard, since much of our government is  
bought and paid for by corporations, but theoretically you could pass laws  
that would reign in
their power.

> Why do you think this?  (And by scared, do you mean scared of losing  
> their money/lifestyle etc, or something else?)
Most of the evil in the world has been caused by fear: fear of going  
without necessities or luxuries, or falling into poverty; fear of someone  
else having power over you; fear of someone else's lifestyle destroying  
yours (e.g. homophobia, racism, and lots of other examples).  Fear of  
change, fear of having your failings become known, fear of losing those  
you love (by death, illness, or unfaithfulness), the list goes on and on.  
The more strident the opposition to the concepts of Peak Oil or
global warming, I keep telling myself, the more likely it is that they are  
scared out of their minds.

	Lynnet