I'm morbidly interested in how the numbers will look like with World Economic Forum reductions in nasty ole agriculture and fertilizer over the next two years of "Right-Population" programs of Davos. Michael: From the comments
My friend who follows such things suggests that the "target" is 2.0 Billion +/- 0.5 Billion.
It is widely recognized that overshoot is highly likely and the low-water mark might be as low as 0.5 Billion before "new systems" are fully in place.
As a frame of reference, the Siege of Leningrad produced 1.2 million civilian casualties from a pre-war population of 3.5 million or roughly a 33% casualty rate.
The 30 Year War in Germany caused a 40% drop in population in rural areas and a 30% population drop in urban areas.
Those levels of depopulation are devastating to the survivor's ability to maintain the basic functions of life. Butcher, baker, soap-and-candle maker, grist-miller, tanner, woodsman, tin-knocker, wagon-master, black-smith, mid-wife: Randomly cross off any three from this list and life gets very, very hard.
Assuming we hit the guessed-at low-water mark, 0.5B/8.0B = 94% depopulation and it is a sure thing that many of those people will not be in centers-of-culture where the WEF leaders reside.
I suspect that civilization will fall apart well before we get down to 2 billion people - and as you mention, almost none of them will be in cities and it is unlikely the current rich will survive the experience.
ReplyDeleteIf I were trying to reduce population greatly, I'd plan it over decades, not a few years, so that there was time for the system to adjust.
I read a book once where births stopped happening and the population shrank over time despite government efforts to grow it.
A baby had just been born in the book, with a father the government had written off and then killed.
Maybe this one: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Late-Sweet-Birds-Sang-ebook/dp/B009WUG378/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CTAKIBV5A45R&keywords=where+late+the+sweet+birds+sang&qid=1674152631&sprefix=where+late+the+sweet+birds+sang%2Caps%2C204&sr=8-1
DeleteI saw the same comment.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me was the part about fertilizers.
1) It's not our job to feed the world.
2) Every civilization that destroys their top soil fails.
3) We cannot keep killing the soil life and the nutritional value of our foods without killing ourselves.
Many instances of foreign overlords or businesses destroying the topsoil of a nation and then moving on.
DeleteI think of Japanese timber firms denuding tropical rainforest in S.E. Asia and the resulting erosion siltting rivers and causing flooding or landslides in lowlands.
Or the brothers in Florida who became sugarcane barons and destroyed huge swath of S. Florida and helped poison Lake Okeechobee with pesticides/herbicides. There "crimes" uninvestigated" due to political playoffs all the way up to Washington D.C.
The lack of a "land ethic" is deep and widespread.
Billybob clearly you're not a gardener. Even my rather large compost piles I do cannot keep my gardens and fruit trees up to serious production.
ReplyDeleteA dab of fertilizer is a good thing. That and electricity (also a WEF no-go is why we have the population we have in America compared to mid 1800.
But then again I want to feed myself and perhaps a few others.
Michael...bad guess. Billybob runs circles around me in gardening ability. And he does it in a climate that has most people driving by on the freeway just the other side of the hill thinking "WTF could anybody grow here?"
DeleteMy bad thanks for the correction, however
DeleteBillybob does his awesome gardening (or farming) without fertilizer?
If so, I WANT HIS Book STAT. I'm struggling to get past 800 daily calories for 4 people over the year. I don't count the hunting calories as I want that as a bonus.
Granted I'm a gentleman farmer but I'm trying to get 2K calories per person for the year.
However, your information explains his correct observation that losing your topsoil is the end of many a nation. Thus, my compost and low till gardening.
I've done field trips on farms in the Midwest a few years ago, some of that "soil" is merely dirt to hold up the plants as the fertilizer and herbicides are applied.
As we grow our permaculture farm, we make a point to maximize the amount of compost we create using our animals. With 30 permanent laying chickens and 100 meat chickens and turkeys per year running through the place, plus our sheep and pigs, there's a lot of nitrogen going into the pile - enough that I also get a couple of truckloads of wood chips to absorb it all.
DeleteContrarian View question. How much outside the property feed and supplies do you use?
DeleteI see you have truckloads of wood chips which combined with manures makes great fast compost.
When I speak about only growing 800 calories a day, I'm speaking of what I produce with ONLY Inputs from inside my own property.
If I add the food produced with inputs from Tractor supply and such, I'm well in the 3K per person per day range, with easy expansion upwards of 6K daily per person.
Not commercial farming level but then again, I'm trying very hard to do the permaculture thing on a smaller property.
BTW it seems almost a secret society about permaculture. I struggle to find actionable information so any guidance I would be grateful. Just researching my Apple Tree Guild was eye opening.
If forced, I can just reduce the variety of foods produced and generate 2+K per person but it would be plain fare indeed. A lot of potatoes, and root crops mainly here in New England. The chickens and rabbits would be lower production due to less protein inputs and I'd be looking at milking sheep.
Yes, I have friends to get some sheep. Just like I co-own some friend's livestock programs. Money and time well spent in my opinion.
I'd have more time as I suspect at that stage of collapse that my hospital employment would be done.
These people are truly scary with what they are 'planning'... And obviously consider themselves 'above' us in the food chain!
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ERJ, we have not seen the kind of death and population devastation this sort of thing would involve in generation. They invoke what they cannot understand almost with glee, like a neophyte invoking a demon who only realizes after the fact they have lost control of the situation. And such things - much to their eventual shock, I am sure - will never be truly "controllable" in the sense they would be free from risk.
ReplyDeleteSchadenfreude is cold comfort when your family is hungry and cold.
DeleteAn African proverb When elephants fight the grass suffers.
You and I friends are the grass.
The comical buffoons at the heh wurld ecofckinomic forum ought to lead this necessary population reduction by example.
ReplyDeletewe are midway through this fourth turning...
ReplyDeleteDecades ago, I thought the most dangerous planet killer would be a 'slate wiper' disease like the bubonic plague. But it turns out that the real planet killer may be ourselves. How those uber rich - powerful people figured that we would happily follow their advice to improving our lives' must be ego stroking at its finest.
ReplyDeleteThey will probably end up on some type of gallows when its all said and done.
Go to the WEF website, find the link to "Our Partners". Jaysus! All the people and corporations involved. Pure evil. We are going to be fighting for our lives and they have a major head start. Dark days ahead.
ReplyDeleteERJ, you're right that widespread population reduction in the historical examples deprived humanity of critically important, skilled tradespeople. How does the fact that today's society includes large numbers of people who do not produce anything of use to others - the (largely urban) welfare class, and the paper-pushers such as government bureaucrats and medical billing specialists, and of course the criminal gangs? While the WEF's diabolically evil goal cuts deep into the muscle and bone of humanity, I find it hard not to agree that there are several millions of "useless eaters" without whom we might be better off.
ReplyDelete