X-Message-Number: 5511
Subject: "Limits to Growth"
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 13:35:12 -0500
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>

> From: Peter Merel <>
> 
> And if Jay Hanson is right, what the researchers might be doing between
> 2035 and 2045 is fighting for food.

This stuff comes up every few years -- everyone from Malthus to now
predicts that disaster is just around the corner. According to the
famous Club of Rome study we should all be experiencing food riots now
as I recall.

The problem is, of course, that these analyses are all purely static
-- never considering advances in technology, changes in prices brought
on by market prices, or increases in production caused by increasing
population. Frankly, I'm not even remotely worried. 

Julian Simon bet Paul Erlich a considerable sum that a large number of
commodities would go down in price with time in constant dollars. He
won, of course. Catastrophism is generally speaking wrong.

> I've spent a couple of days web-surfing to try to figure out if food is
> really becoming more available, or less available.

Have you tried looking at world food prices instead? They are a much
simpler indicator, being a pure supply/demand based metric.

They also contradict your premise, by the way.

Perry


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