Home Outside Asylum

Take a walk, smell the roses. Any topic is fine, save people bashing.

Culture shock won't kill you, food shortages will.

There's a big debate going on in the Peak Oil community about what the optimal location is to survive and thrive in a post-peak world. Some say rural, for access to food. Some say rural villages, with food a bit further away but more people to supply services. Some say urban because the concentration of people, goods and services makes distribution and access more efficient. I think it depends on how far down the curve we fall. If we fall a bit, we might readjust our lives to make cities optimal. Fall a bit further, and villages become optimal because you can't get enough food into cities. Fall further, and it's every man for himself out on the farm raising spuds and setting rabbit traps. Obviously, the level of urbanization that remains optimal will vary from country to country. I'd expect large cities to remain optimal longer in North America than in Africa, for example.

One of the food problems we may face as well as distribution is the loss of farming knowledge. In the 1900s 50% to 70% of the North American population was engaged in agriculture either directly or indirectly. Now it's about 2% thanks to the leverage afforded by fossil fuels. If we need to increase the human inputs into agriculture again, we'll have a very hard time reconstituting the knowledge - especially if the decline in fossil fuels is fairly rapid (i.e. over 4% per year).


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  VH Audio  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.