I'm just going to leave this here quietly, then run like hell....

[jberryhill]

54. As a species, we have made a choice

With the staggering scale of our planetary population we CAN produce enough food for everyone at present. The food problems are problems of distribution.

Be that as it may, there are some things that are going to come to a screeching halt right quick.

And the main problem is phosphorus. We are running out.

So, we either need some dramatic technical fixes to accommodate the problem of feeding three times as many people as we do now, or we get serious about population.

All indications are that our species has made its decision on population control, so we have got to make some decisions on engineering yield, diet composition, and a couple of other things, or we are heading for a very ugly set of future events. Even if we were to stabilize population, it is a challenge.

If you look at what pre-Columbian natives ate as "corn", relative to what "corn" was by the 1800's, you have to appreciate how engineered our staple foods always have been. There were no Stone Age dairy cows running around in wild herds. We made these things we eat. We always have.

I have absolutely no qualifications to opine on GM food safety. But it is clear, and particularly as we take this huge population into the face of a changing climate, that we have to have the capability to adapt our foods into those changing conditions a whole lot faster than the couple of ten thousand years it took to get things like wheat, corn, barley, rice and soybeans to be what they are now.

You can't just wish away that we face certain choices as a species nor can you wish away the fact that our species has chosen to proceed in ways it shouldn't have.

Our current agricultural path involves making decisions to change our behavior or adapt our food to the consequences of it. I hope we can change our behavior, but we need a plan B.