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Re: The Limits To Growth
>Making energy efficiency a general goal is foolish. What counts is
>the labor efficiency that permits two percent of the American
>population to grow food for all of us and then some for export.
>Even yield/hectare is much less important than yield/man-hour.
>American farms are typically less efficient than European in
>yield/hectare and more efficient in yield/man-hour.
>
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
>a lot.
John, you are about a century behind. The reasons given in the last
century for reducing man hour inputs were that we "needed" cheap labor
for the industrial revolution, but while maintaining an unemployment rate
of 8% this argument is going by the way. It IS energy efficiency that is
the problem now, particularly in Third World agriculture, where labor is
what they have in greatest supply. Moreover, the looming food crisis is
caused by soil loss. But even yeild per hectare shows limited awareness.
It should be yeild per hectare+ fuel used to create, ship and distribute
inputs + fertilizers, pesticides etc + man hours + health costs due to
environmental degradation over time. In other words, if you yeild per
acre is high today, but lower tommorrow you must factor that in.
--
Karen Stark
ks36@cornell.edu
"We have ruined more, wasted more, trampled on more than any civilization
the world has ever seen - in a shorter time, too."
Frank Lloyd Wright
References: