The Malthus Crunch And Starvin Marvin

"Let's given him a name."
"How'bout Marvin?"
"Yeah! Starvin Marvin!!"

It's Always There
We live on a planet with finite resources. Our ongoing survival depends greatly on how we manage those resources. Lately, oil has been in the headlines, but food is actually the lurking skulker.
Here's an article about our food supply problems, sent in by Pleiades.

Rising population, water shortages, climate change, and the growing costs of fossil fuel-based fertilisers point to a calamitous shortfall in the world's grain supplies in the near future, according to Canada's National Farmers Union (NFU).

Thirty years ago, the oceans were teeming with fish, but today more people rely on farmers to produce their food than ever before, says Stewart Wells, NFU's president.

In five of the last six years, global population ate significantly more grains than farmers produced.

And with the world's farmers unable to increase food production, policymakers must address the "massive challenges to the ability of humanity to continue to feed its growing numbers", Wells said in a statement.

There isn't much land left on the planet that can be converted into new food-producing areas, notes Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based non-governmental organisation. And what is left is of generally poor quality or likely to turn into dust bowls if heavily exploited, Brown told IPS.

Unlike the Green Revolution in the 1960s, when improved strains of wheat, rice, maize and other cereals dramatically boosted global food production, there are no technological magic bullets waiting in the wings.

"Biotechnology has made little difference so far," he said.

Even if the long-promised biotech advances in drought, cold, and disease-resistance come about in the next decade, they will boost yields little more than five percent globally, Brown said.

"There's not nearly enough discussion about how people will be fed 20 years from now," he said.

Hunger is already a stark and painful reality for more than 850 million people, including 300 million children. How can the number of hungry not explode when one, two and possibly three billion more people are added to the global population?

The global food system needs fixing and fast, says Darrin Qualman, NFU's research director.

"Many Canadian and U.S. farmers are going out of business because crop prices are at their lowest in nearly 100 years," Qualman said in an interview. "Farmers are told overproduction is to blame for the low prices they've been forced to accept in recent years."

It's a complex problem so please read all of that article.

The Malthus Crunch is always discredited by economists who claim that advances in technology will compensate for the demand. Indeed the world's population has far outstripped the figure projected by Malthus based on 19th Century agritechincal know-how. Schumpeter was the economist who basically described the 'creative destruction of value', as modes of production change and this has also contributed to the current state of the world that exists beyond the Malthus number. Yet so few economists seem to want to take on the physical chemistry reality that we're sitting beyond the Malthus number thanks to pouring crude oil into the system. Well, we all know where that's going.

The other problem is that we're trying to squeeze more out of less in each succeeding generation and at the same time, the numbers that need to be supported keep growing. The next best solution to technological innovation is to cull population growth; and the 'next best way' to do that is culling actual people. It seems to me therefore that the general indifference of governments in the Industrialised world towards Africa is quite deliberate in that it is a population cull.

Consider the following:
War costs money. Actively going out to kill people is a hassle. You have to come up with excuses, pretexts, rhetoric. You have to pay people to fight them, you have to send them logistical support and you have to pay people to organise all this stuff. These are sins of commission, so to speak.

Sins of omission on the other hand are harder to spot, and hence, it seems it is a lot easier to just let Africa go to hell in a basket and let them cull themselves. The widespread famine, disease andd political instability is enough. You don't need War to do your job. But of course, the arms industry helps out by selling these people weapons and so the First World has even subcontracted out the war to Africans to cull themsleves.

Now, I'm not arguing a conspiracy here. Forget conspiracies; this is just economics; I'm just pointing out an economic dynamic that has been playing out for as long as I've been aware. The First World is hungry for resources and has the muscle to outbid the rest of the world. The rest of the world is going to have to make do with fewer and fewer resources while they become the first to suffer. Food and oil, oil and food. The Malthus crunch is coming closer again.

Today's Yankee-ography
After yesterday's funky win, the Yankees lost a game they had to lose.
This was the starting lineup:

Johnny Damon DH
Derek Jeter SS
Jason Giambi 1B
Alex Rodríguez 3B
Robinson Canó 2B
Bernie Williams CF
Melky Cabrera RF
Bubba Crosby LF
Kelly Stinnett C

SP: Jaret Wright (1-2, 5.06 ERA)

Bernie in Center? Aiyah. If there was a day to do it, the previous day with Wang pitching was it. Not when Jaret Wright's pitching. If you're fielding this team with the given resources, you don't really expect to win.

Even though Wright doesn't inspire much confidence, he made his way through 6 innings, then ran into trouble in the 7th. Give him credit, he only struck out 2 but walked none and still gave up only 3. He even lowered his ERA to under 5.00. Heck, he's been more valuable than Carl Pavano this year. Speaking of Pavano, here's Steven Goldman's scouting report:

My masters at YES suggested I head down to Trenton on Wednesday and see how Carl Pavano's rehab was progressing. Pavano was scheduled to start Wednesday's game, and after his positive outing on Friday it was hoped that this time out he would not only pitch well, but get through 90 pitches. He missed it by a factor of 10.

Rich Monteleone, in Trenton as Pavano's chaperone, shut the righty down after just nine pitches. Ironically, those nine pitches were all Pavano needed to retire opposition Portland in order in the first, but his seeming efficiency belied more serious problems. Pavano, who had been working his way back to the majors after injuries to his back and buttocks, "created" (in Monteleone's words) some arm soreness during his last start. That soreness, which, Monteleone conceded, could also be categorized as "pain," returned with greater intensity on Wednesday, striking Pavano's forearm and triceps muscle.

Pavano's fastball was only in the low to mid 80s, whereas when healthy it will typically be between 88-91 miles per hour. With the pain and the lack of stuff, Monteleone decided that Pavano had to stop. The pitcher agreed.

Pavano was too upset to speak with the media. Monteleone fielded questions in his stead. Trenton was a sentimental stop for Pavano; Pavano had pitched at Trenton back in 1996, and it was there that he put himself on the map as a top prospect. His mother and several old friends were on hand to see his start, not to mention Gene Michael of the Yankees.

Until the doctors get a look at Pavano, it is impossible to know for sure what happened, whether this is a new injury or simply an aberration. What is certain is that Pavano's return to New York has been indefinitely delayed by this latest setback. Pavano needs to build up his arm so that he has the endurance to start in the majors. That means taking a regular turn every five days as if he was in a rotation, regardless of where he's pitching. Each time he's shut down, the pitch count clock gets set back.

What remains is this: since reaching the majors in 1998, Pavano has had just one season in which he was both healthy and effective. He's signed through 2008 (with an inevitable 2009 buyout), and his contract is backloaded so that his salary rises in each year of the agreement, so unless he retires we still have years of rehab starts to come.

So there actually was a signing worse than Jaret Wright or Tony Womack.

Jeter, Giambi and A-Rod were held hitless. That kinda sucks, but what really gets me is that Joe Torre brings Scott Erickson in after Wright. I guess I should be happy it wasn't Proctor who he has been riding hard. But you know, why is Erickson even on this team? They have Colter Bean; they have Matt Smith; they have Matt DeSalvo, and a host of others who should be there instead of Erickson.

Bright spots for me: Melky Cabrera went 1-for-3, with a walk rasing his BA to .318. Robby Cano went 2-for-4. not much else, but he's hitting .317.
Onward to the annual hypefest, the Subway Series.