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tradman
Jul 5, 2005, 2:44 PM
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Jevon's Paradox is well-observed, but nobody has ever observed it to its conclusion (ie to scarcity of the resource).
In fact, observations to date of Jevon's support the transfer to new technologies at the low end of the slope, not the end and destruction of the consuming society - the Paradox was originally formulated to describe how coal consumption had increased despite the increase in efficiency offered by new steam engine designs.
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karlbaba
Jul 5, 2005, 3:45 PM
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I think there is little doubt that society will continue, yet transformed. As you observed, we lived thousands of years without oil.
And how the process will unfold seems to complex for anyone to predict. We can't even predict the simplest future scenarios to make a few bucks on the stock market.
Peace
Karl
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blondgecko
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Jul 5, 2005, 11:47 PM
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In reply to: Similarly, you seem to have no actual reason for believing that steam engines can't do the work of petrol engines in agriculture. Again, anyone can see that it's not an issue: 70 years ago, they were being used to do all those tasks. If we now have a larger scale then all that is required is more engines.
Oh, you were serious. :roll:
I didn't say coal-fired steam engines couldn't perform as well as petrol engines, I just said I'd hate to see the world in 50 years' time if we made that switch. Sulfur oxides from burning coal (coal can be anywhere up to about 5% sulfur) were the major cause of the acid rains of the early-mid 20th century that killed forests and poisoned rivers across much of Europe. Scrubber technology has come a long way since then, but is bulky and requires huge amounts of cooling water, so is not particularly useful in a mobile situation.
Essentially, we could transfer over to coal, but we'd be taking the world to hell in the process. Compared to coal, gasoline is a wondrously green fuel.
In reply to: If your plate is not empty this morning, why do you believe that our current system of agriculture is not workable? Please be specific.
I think, if you do a bit of research, that you'll find that the vast majority of the world's farmland is already at close to 100% utilisation. The reason why most farmers no longer allow fields to lie fallow is that they simply can't afford to - there is simply no way we could produce enough food if half (or even a quarter) of fields were unused at any one time.
True, a lot of food currently produced rots before it ever makes it to the consumer, but much of this problem is... wait for it... due to the cost of power for proper cold storage! Do you think this problem is likely to get better or worse?
Anyway, off the topic of agriculture... there are plenty of other interesting things to talk about... such as how to sustain, transport etc. a city of 10 million people without oil power.
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coloredchalker
Jul 6, 2005, 1:33 AM
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Hey Karl what did you read/research about hydro electric energy?
Seriuosly and with out any contempt
edited to add another thought.
I think what would make the transition from oil dependancy to manual labor so difficult isn't the machinery change necessary but the mind set change that would have to be made.
Can you think of 5 people that wouldn't mind doing more manual labor to eat food? I can't. So dividing up the land wouldn't work untill people were to the point of starvation and decided to take personal responsibility for their actions, in this case survival.
If you change back to coal burning machines it is going to require much more attention by human minds in the field.
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karlbaba
Jul 6, 2005, 2:14 AM
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I've haven't done specific research on Hydro Power. Some of the conclusions will be self evident.
1. It will be part of the energy mix of the future but not remotely scalable enough to provide a huge part of the solution. Too dependent on specific circumstances (lots of water, empty land, vertical drops, etc)
2. It won't provide transportation fuel except to crack water into hydrogen if hydrogen's other problems get solved.
3. It often involves a huge energy-intensive capital investment that will be harder to come up with during hard times.
4. Large effect of local environment (goes underwater!), but hard times tend to get those obstacles overcome easier.
5. Small scale hydro will become popular in local communities and even private farms and ranches where ideal conditions exist. Unfortunately, ideal conditions are pretty rare.
6. Line loss makes it hard to move that energy long distances from it source.
Regarding food. Here is a very recent and fairly complete analysis of the issue. Tradman's assertions about Ag are validated with certain qualifiers.
http://copvcia.com/...orld_stories.shtml#1
Peace
Karl
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karlbaba
Jul 6, 2005, 3:06 AM
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A lot of folks are asking about solutions and even demanding that the problem not be stated without offering solutions.
The problem is that many folks who study the problem don’t find solutions that allow us to continue the lifestyle that we have previously enjoyed.
This leads us to predict that a future will gradually evolve, or suddenly be thrust upon us, where a variety of solutions are applied to give us as much energy as possible, with energy conservation and simple energy unavailability (and expense) providing the other half of the equation.
This will mean a complex set of transitions that will vary wildly depending on a host of unpredictable circumstances in addition to local conditions. Most predictions of the future are bound to be wrong, a little or a lot.
And unfortunately, how we approach the problem individually will involve gambles of one sort or another. Some folks sold everything and bought tons of food before Y2K. They lost their gamble on the crisis that they were sold.
That doesn’t mean that oil depletion will be the same kind of bust, however much we might hope for it to fizzle. The point is that we will all have to take responsibility for our decisions based on our own research.
My opinion, likely to be somewhat wrong, is that, if you research the problem and agree that it’s a serious concern, you will consider the following:
1. The future of the US dollar and economy is in serious doubt. You will need to consider your investments and how vulnerable they are to dollar devaluation, inflation, rising interest rates, and oil prices. Some folks are buying gold, oil service stocks, and whatnot. I have a poor performance record in the stock market so don’t listen to me. Still, finances are a serious area of concern in any rapidly changing and volatile scenario.
2. When faced with making changes in where you live, what kind of house you have, how you remodel, and so on, consider the effect that oil shortage might have on your lifestyle. Avoid long commutes, hot areas that need a lot of air conditioning, inefficient heating, and so on. Don’t replace the fireplace with a gas insert. Don’t live around nasty people as we will need to rely on our neighbors and community more than in the past.
3. Avoid taking on new debt whenever possible. If you must borrow money, avoid interest only loans and adjustable rate loans. Learn to live simpler.
4. Folks who are willing to invest more in this problem can consider vehicles that can run on variants of diesel such as bio-diesel, vegetable oil, and so on. They get good mileage now and the flexibility might help in the future. This is something of a gamble but if you’re buying a vehicle anyway, you don’t have too much to lose.
5. Try to educate your local community, particularly folks in decision-making roles, so that your local area has the chance to make future plans that don’t assume a constant input of cheap energy. You might grow yourself a fine organic garden and put solar panels on your roof, but the choices could get ugly if the problem hits suddenly and not gently. You don’t want to have your neighbors be unprepared and watch them either suffer or come after your resources.
6. Make the best of it. Try to learn from changes. Learn to network with people, locally and on the net. Accept that happiness doesn’t come from financial growth and luxury products. Take the opportunity to be close with your family and deepen your spiritual life. These things will help you through changing times better than any preconceived strategy.
I wish I had more to offer. Again, I have no idea if this problem will hit quickly or slowly. Nobody can predict how things will transpire. I do however, read the numbers and do the math. This doesn’t look like a hoax to me. Better look into it. Check out some recent numbers here
http://321energy.com/...tt/sprott070505.html
You may avoid the worst of the problems. Your kids are certainly not going to get a free pass. Prepare them gently for a different kind of future than everybody around them is assuming.
And best of luck to everybody. I’m sorry this can be upsetting. It’s not easy to look like a nut and make folks angry by posting it. Hopefully it will put a seed of investigation into your mind and benefit you in the future.
Peace
Karl
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macherry
Jul 6, 2005, 3:13 AM
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i always thought the "big battle" would be fought over water
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karlbaba
Jul 6, 2005, 3:22 AM
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Better go back to BC! You might still get your water fight in Vegas!
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macherry
Jul 6, 2005, 3:31 AM
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i'm not looking for a fight....trust me
but i do believe water is an issue that will confront us in the near future
clean drinking and irrigation
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tradman
Jul 6, 2005, 8:07 AM
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Ah! Now that's some good food for thought Karl. It struck me as you said this:
"The problem is that many folks who study the problem don’t find solutions that allow us to continue the lifestyle that we have previously enjoyed."
that this all depends on what kind of lifestyle it is that you want to continue.
I suppose that I'm probably a lot less worried about life after a potential oil crash for the pure and simple reason that my life as it stands is not very incompatible with that scenario: I live in a small village surrounded by farms on fertile land, where I know all my neighbours well because we all share and work together for the community. There's almost no crime (in fact we don't even have any police) and almost anything I need I get locally. I use my very modest little car about 3 times a week for short journeys.
Further down the scale I also have a house on the islands to the west, where all my neighbours still practice organic subsistence farming just as their parents and their parents parents did before them. Again, it's easy to see that that lifestyle is not difficult to see continuing after an oil crash.
I suppose that if you live in a city where either you don't know or are terrified of your neighbours, you own a gigantic SUV which you use to commute to your office and the longest walk you take daily is on concrete then yeah, I could see that an oil crash would be frightening, because your lifestyle is incompatible with that scenario.
I'd like to propose a self-test to discover whether your life is compatible with an oil crash. This will be known as the "cow test".
Ask yourself this: where did you last see a cow?
If the answer was "in a field", you'll be just fine.
If the answer was "on TV" or "in a magazine" or other, you're fucked.
:wink:
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karlbaba
Jul 8, 2005, 5:31 AM
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Nice post Tradman (pun intended when you wrote food for thought?)
I'm happy for you that you seem ideally set up for any change due to oil running out. I can't say how I"m situated because I can't bear to leave Yosemite, and, as a government area, I have no control over anything.
In any case, sounds ideal over there unless they burn so much coal that the Gulf Stream lets you down.
Probably, since so many factors contribute to the outcome, it will be better to be lucky than smart. Better store up the good karma
Peace
karl
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bandycoot
Jul 8, 2005, 7:06 AM
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Hey tradman, you keep trying to attack entire arguments by nitpicking small tidbits. I think that Karl's post on the percentages of oil expenditure that goes into our food production is a good example of the technologies we have now. I'd also like to point out that arguing with you is pointless since you don't even understand your own arguement. You've implied many times that we'll be able to sustain the same amount of food production, then said:
In reply to: Fertilizer: as previously discussed, holding more fields fallow because of a lack of heavy machinery will overcome this problem, with manure making up the remainder. If you don't know what fallow means, you shouldn't even be discussing this topic.
How exactly does one leave more fields fallow and produce the same amount? You just argued against yourself. There will OBVIOUSLY be a reduction of production and you're even pointing it out. Fertilizer will be one SMALL component in the equation.
Are you done attacking Karl's original post by focusing on agriculture yet?
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meataxe
Jul 9, 2005, 5:31 PM
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I missed the original post a few days ago, but here's my take on the situation.
- As far as we can tell, the peak oil theory is true -- The Dr. Hubbert who did much of the original work accurately modeled the rise and fall of Texas oil production. Texas peaked in the 1970's.
- Reduction in energy WILL affect food production -- Where I live, a large percentage of our vegetables thrroughout the year come from hothouses or imported from the US or Mexico. You cannot grow much around here in the winter. Period. (Barring a new subterranian mushroom industry.) When I was flying out west a few weeks ago, as always I passed over these big green circles in the middle of wide brown expanses. (Farms, not UFO bases.) These farms rely on energy to produce food in a hostile environment. Changing to a more labour intensive mode of production may make these farms unviable.
- Consumption is increasing -- I visited China last fall, and sadly, they are following a US model for developing their infrastructure. Rather than mass transit, they have developed something similar to the Interstate highway system. There are major highways and large gas station service plazas just waiting for more cars to come along. The growing middle class and increased leisure activities are just beginning to fill this capacity. When anything happens in China, it happens in a big way.
- As we change to a other fuels such as coal and biomass (wood, cow patties, etc.) this will impact the environment and the climate producing even more changes to which we may struggle to adapt.
- Financially, many corporations, governments and personal investments are based on our current oil-based economy. This will change and there will be financial upheaval for some time. Some will profit. Many more will lose out as their investments, jobs and standard of living disintegrates. My observation is that the billionaires of the world usually aren't the ones suffering in these situations.
- War for oil. Expect more--it only makes sense for the PTB (Powers That Be) to secure their supplies of oil for as long as possible. The PTBs that matter as far as I see are USA and China. Think of this: Iraq borders on Iran borders on Afghanistan borders on (guess)*. Who is the man in the middle in completing the Mid-East jigsaw? Iran.
On a more positive note... (In case you are wondering if my tinfoil hat is slipping off.)
- The Hubbert theory of peak oil specifies a gradual peak with a slow build-up and a slow decline. We are not going to wake up one day and there is no oil (as some thought in the 70's energy crisis). What will happen is that petroleum will become more and more expensive over time. In microeconomic terms this will lead to lower demand. ("Honey, I think we need to sell the SUV, *sniff*...".)
- Increasing cost of petroleum will make new technologies more viable. On my flight out west, I went over Texas and noticed that some of the dried up oil wells had been converted to wind farms. (Makes sense, the drill sites already have electrical service and access roads.) Solar energy is becoming cheaper and will likely become more viable over time. Technology is making greater efficiency possible. Nanotechnology is possibly a great hope, though still a wild card today.
http://www.mavromatic.com/images/zap.jpg
(Smart Cars are cool.)
- Alternative fuel sources are popping up all over. For example:
+ + biodeisel - run your car on old french fry grease.
+ + hemp - Run your car on flowers, man. http://www.mtn.org/iasa/hempphoto.html
+ + hippies - Hippies average 30% body fat and can easily be rendered into an efficient fuel. (Science has yet to find a use for the remaining 70%.)
http://www.911filmcars.com/images/bus_06a.jpg
- Permaculture -- While more expensive oil may drastically change food production, the future may look like this: http://permaculture.org.au/. While this is a more labour intensive model, permaculture is otherwise more efficient than modern agriculture. (More farmers, less tractors.)
*China, in case you didn't want to check an atlas.
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karlbaba
Jul 12, 2005, 2:03 AM
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Pretty Trippy. Chevron just launched a prime time advertising campaign that basically implies peak oil and nothing else. They point out that we burned through the first trillion barrels of oil in 125 years, but that the second trillion will only take 30 years to burn. They note that 1 barrel of oil is discovered for every 2 barrels burnt.
They put up a website to deal with inquiries and discussions. I have no idea what their motivations are.
http://www.willyoujoinus.com/
Peace
Karl
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cupton
Jul 12, 2005, 2:58 AM
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In our capitalist world people do not die in a famine because there is no food present but because they can not afford it. As the price of oil goes up so does the cost of imported food.
Fortunately for us (rich world) we will be able to survive the first effects of the oil crisis with little change other than the increase in the price of gasoline and a small paragraph in the paper. Unfortunately people not lucky enough to be born in the rich world will suffer a very different fate.
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thegreytradster
Jul 12, 2005, 3:36 AM
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In reply to: In our capitalist world people do not die in a famine because there is no food present but because they can not afford it. .
In your corner of the world, people die because there isn't enough capitalisim.
In its place there are kleptocracys and tyrants that use artificialy induced famine to acomplish their genocidal ends.
I find it a little peculiar how far removed most of you are from the basics of the food chain. Agriculture isn't rocket science. We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years and just keep geting better at it. The normal size for a farm from the dawn of Greek civilization to the late 1800's was about ten acres. Given avalable water (that can be moved around efficently with hydro and nuclear power) it doesn't take much land to raise more food than you can eat.
I don't buy anything at the store except meat, milk and convinience stuff for 9 months out of the year with only a few hundred square feet cultivated.
Now excuse me! The water is boiling and I have to blanch another load of green beans so I can freeze them.
If energy was dear, I'd can them instead.
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sakura
Jul 12, 2005, 9:39 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: In our capitalist world people do not die in a famine because there is no food present but because they can not afford it. . In your corner of the world, people die because there isn't enough capitalisim. In its place there are kleptocracys and tyrants that use artificialy induced famine to acomplish their genocidal ends. I find it a little peculiar how far removed most of you are from the basics of the food chain. Agriculture isn't rocket science. We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years and just keep geting better at it. The normal size for a farm from the dawn of Greek civilization to the late 1800's was about ten acres. Given avalable water (that can be moved around efficently with hydro and nuclear power) it doesn't take much land to raise more food than you can eat. I don't buy anything at the store except meat, milk and convinience stuff for 9 months out of the year with only a few hundred square feet cultivated. Now excuse me! The water is boiling and I have to blanch another load of green beans so I can freeze them. If energy was dear, I'd can them instead.
I've come in quite early to this and i have had to run in and out due to work but it seems you are completely relating other people to your experience.
So you buy meat etc once every five months? What about people who cannot afford that? Does that mean its economics?
Im young and confused but it seems you think because you can afford to have this land with this money to buy food and look after yourself others should, and the reason for famine is because they dont do what you do.
Sorry if this sounds horrible i mean this to be a question ot a judgement.
Chris
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tradman
Jul 12, 2005, 11:17 AM
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I've covered this recently in another thread, but I'll go over it again here.
Famine is not a lack of money. It's a lack of food. Famine is not a problem because people are not rich enough to buy food, it's a problem because there's no food to buy.
There have been cases in which warlords and dictators have deliberately used famine to persecute people, but no human being has ever caused a famine- there has to be an underlying natural cause. After all, if the ground is fertile and the rains good, then people can just grow food wherever they are, right? No famine there.
Famine is very hard for us in the west to understand, because our soil is good, our agriculture advanced and our society stable, meaning that most of us have never been forced to go a day without food let alone weeks or months.
However, to blame famine or the starvation it causes on politics, economics or ideaologies betrays not only a lack of experience but also a lack of common sense.
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jeffers_mz
Jul 12, 2005, 2:34 PM
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For less than 100 grand, I can generate about 30 MW with no pollution and no fuel costs. That's assuming less than 10% efficiency. When you see how, you'll smack yourself in the head, probably more than once.
It scales, in fact, it scales all too well, but I've got that covered too.
I've got a little work to do refining certain design aspects, not deal stoppers, just making sure I'm not throwing away any more than I have to.
There are site dependencies, but roughly half the land in the US meets minimum standards for a plant.
I started on this in 1986. Refining the design will take about two years from now. Patent approval, permits, site prep and construction will take about 5 years after the design is fixed. I expect negotiations for licensing to take about two years, and license exclusivity will be based on production quotas, so this won't end up sitting on a shelf. Still, global changeover will take decades to complete. Not much I can do about that.
What you can do to help is to understand that electricity will be the medium of energy transport for at least the next 200 years. You will need a vehicle that efficiently meets your needs and that runs on electricity. Decide whether you like fuel cells, hydrogen combustion, or storage batteries now, and do what you can to help get the distribution network into place. Buying a hybrid is a good move, as it paves the way for the changeover.
Somebody needs to figure out a good way to move naval and air traffic using electricity, or at the very least, non carbons for fuel. I'm busy with other things right now.
Depending on how much oil is left by the time I introduce this, you might need to work on alternative sources for the raw materials we need for plastics and fertilizers.
This will get China and the rest of the third world online, without breaking our own economy, but there are long term implications. By then the proceeds from this endeavor will have been converted into efforts to implement and tune direct mass-energy conversion without the use of energetic neutrons. Clearly there are long term considerations there as well, but somebody else is going to have to take it from there.
I'm not looking to brag, but I want this taken seriously so...
There are three members of my immediate family who are titled Dr., all in the hard sciences, Organic Chemistry, Molecular Biochemistry and Medicine. Members of my immediate family are listed as Originator on currently 39 United States Patents. A single one of those patents accounted for $250 million USD in sales across Europe during its first year of patent protection. By previous agreement, that patent was transferred to the holder at the time for the sum of $1, though there were other compensations in the form of options, performance bonuses, and career advancement. This patent was not the largest in sales of those referred to above.
I'm not jerking your chains here, this is my life's work.
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sakura
Jul 12, 2005, 2:52 PM
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Well jeffers_mz,
I congratulations, good luck, dont know exactly what to say? Thank you?
I am not being sarcastic just not to sure what to say to show.....appreciation.
Good for you. Your doing something instead of just complaining!
Chris
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jeffers_mz
Jul 13, 2005, 1:58 AM
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I appreciate where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that thanks are appropriate. I intend to reap a healthy profit from licensing fees. I'm not holding out for a global economy breaking fee, but I do intend to use the profits to set up a self sufficient trust that in turn funds a research facility for next generation energy conversion, and neither theoretical nor applied physics come cheap.
If anything, instead of thanks, I'd like to see the infrastructure necessary to make this actually function start moving into place. Even though this is simply a combination of tried and true technology that simply hasn't been implemented yet, there's still the theoretical possibility that I'm wrong, but even so, electricity has to be the future's energy transmission medium. It is simply the cleanest, most flexible, and most efficient method to move usable energy around. On a very large scale, which would you prefer to haul around, vegetable oil, or nearly massless electrons?
For that reason, my next vehicle will be a hybrid. Even in the worst case scenario, where cheap clean generation isn't in the cards for the vehicle's usable life, getting my personal lifestyle aligned with what has to be, is worth the effort, and helping establish the global infrastructure necessary to go all electric is part of the process too.
Hydrogen combustion would allow us to operate as we do now, quick fill-ups at at "gas" station, but secure storage, especially during accidents, is a tech hurdle we would have to address. In the process, mistakes are to be expected, and people will be killed. The process will take time. On the plus side, aircraft and ships can operate mostly as they do now. The facilities that now produce internal combustion engines and accessories won't be cut completely out, and large scale economic disruptions won't be as much of a problem.
Fuel cells can be recharged, the reactants replaced, but my current level of familiarity with them is that they have to be deactivated to be refuelled and that getting them properly tuned on re-activation is a complicated process. Still, autos, ships and planes could use similar fuelling systems. More economic disruption would result with this method as well.
Storage batteries impose a different set of issues. Recharging them takes time. I think you'd have to see facilities set up where you could deep cycle charge them at most workplaces and all homes, plus methods to top them off at short duration locations like shopping malls.
There might be other options too, and I expect we will see several technologies compete in the early phases of the changeover, possibly longer than that.
But in any event, we have the opportunity to do the thing right this time around. When guys like the Wright brothers and Walter Chrysler and Henry Ford were pioneering the automobile, and when Tesla and Westinghouse were pioneering the polyphase alternating current generation and transmission systems we use now, none of them even bothered to think about the long term implications, such as side effects, byproducts, pollution, available resources, opportuity costs associated with utilizing those resources, none of it. They simply grabbed the handiest technology available at the time and went to work integrating it to merely the functionally level.
This time around, it need to be done both functionally, or else no-one will be motivated to make the switch, and it also need to be done elegantly, with the long term effects and consequences firmly in mind during the design processes. If animals and plants can live in concert with the laws of nature, there is no reason why we cannot decide to do so ourselves, without giving up the benefits of advanced technology. That doesn't happen by accident, it requires forethought.
There's no reason why some of that kind of planning, and even some of the early trial and error process can't start now. By figures posted in this thread, we have used about half of the earth's oil supply for energy, literally burning it, with all the attendent inefficiancy and filth that implies, oil that took hundreds of millions of years to develop naturally, oil that will not be replaced in our lifetimes, oil that funds global terrorism, oil that we need for other things, namely plastics and fertilizer.
Not only should that stop, it has to stop, we do not have an inexhaustable supply. It's going to run out. Long before it runs out, the demand will equal and then exceed the supply. When that happens, prices go up. We can barely afford the costs now.
I think more than anything, beyond the comparatively modest consideration of cheap clean energy, I'd like to see a new scope of perception in use by the human race. Most people think in terms of today, and five minutes from now, and this week. People who pay most of their bills on time think up to a month ahead. Maybe even a year, what with annual expenses like property and income taxes.
People with children think in terms of 20 year cycles, in order to be ready to put the kids through college and the purchase of a house operates under similar timescales.
But almost no-one is thinking 100 years ahead. When you look back at how we have misused a precious gift like natural oil, it becomes immediately clear that we have to think in terms of time periods that long and even longer.
At least a few of us have to look at the thousand year future too. And once you understand why that is necessary, there's no reason not to at least check in to the ten thousand year picture from time to time either. I had hoped the Y2K scare would have opened more people's eyes to long term considerations but that hasn't happened. I don't like surprises. You can't eliminate all of the unexpected, but there's certainly no harm in trying to forsee the easy ones.
Because we humans have the privelege of choice, we can choose to do things we know will harm us in the long run, both on a personal level and as a race. But there's no natural law that says we have to. We can choose to be smart. It isn't a matter of genetic intelligence, it is simply a matter of making the decision and sticking to it.
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meataxe
Jul 13, 2005, 2:18 AM
Post #49 of 55
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In reply to: In reply to: In our capitalist world people do not die in a famine because there is no food present but because they can not afford it. . In your corner of the world, people die because there isn't enough capitalisim.
I think a lot of the problems in Africa comes from non-Africans who assume the Africans can't figure anything out themselves.
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meataxe
Jul 13, 2005, 2:32 AM
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In reply to: [snip]However, to blame famine or the starvation it causes on politics, economics or ideaologies betrays not only a lack of experience but also a lack of common sense.
I heard an interview with an Indian activist (a Nobel laureate, I believe). He claimed that there has never been a famine in a democracy. I'm not personally certain of the figures for all countries, but it is certainly true for India before and after independance.
This regards *famine*--widespread starvation and death, he stressed, not merely hunger. This is plausible, as in a dictatorship it can be politically expedient for a politician to conceal food shortages in their jurisdiction. In a democracy this is not so.
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