Wine and Malthusian Catastrophe

[sunson]

I came across this excellent piece of (long but beautifully explained) article explaining how Wine making is essentially due to a Malthusian Catastrophe of the Yeast population.

The article starts off with explaining the Malthusian Catastrophe by citing examples of how living things tend to overpopulate in the absence of population control and

Comments

[inspirethoughts]

Nice article:

[i]This keeps the populations of both species in check.But, what happens when there are no predators?[/i]

Very correct. I have seen it happening here. In the place where I live, govt had introduced a variety of miniature beetles to keep one kind of mosquitoes under control...now beetles have increased their population and mosquitoes are lesser...but beetles are getting a little unbearable in summers.. :(

[i]All species suffer population collapse or species extinction if they overshoot[/i]

I am assuming this is applicable to Homo Sapiens as well...so will we become extinct as well?

[sunson]

[i]All species suffer population collapse or species extinction if they overshoot[/i]

I am assuming this is applicable to Homo Sapiens as well...so will we become extinct as well?

We'd probably go through a bottleneck and its difficult to predict the outcome. Bottlenecks work both ways - in weeding out the lesser effective individuals (therefore resources are not strained) as well as thinning down the gene pool (and the size of gene pool dictates adaptability and survival).

[inspirethoughts]

Hmm...bottlenecks are not good for any species. Somehow, when ever I see such documentaries on TV or read such articles, reminds me of "Planet Of Apes", not sure why...but I always feel that the bottleneck might alter about who would be the dominant species. May be I am over imagining!

[sunson]

Planet of the Apes has its flaws. The story begs us to assume apes suddenly ended up getting favorable mutations to achieve the end result shown in the future of the apes colony (tool making skills which are very minimal with apes, ability to tame other animals for their own benefits, "culture" and arts, ability to plan attacks and work in such larger groups, etc.,.) all while humans were just sitting idle doing nothing about 'dealing' with these apes which are already out of control.

Or did they get geographically separated and later had to face each other after the point when the apes had become the super-beasts as shown in the movie?

[redslime]

yeah, it seems certain that we are heading for some crisis. its hard to say if this one can be averted as have others in human history. I think it is very likely we will have a die back (10 to 50%) in the next 50 years. If so it will be a real test of who we are.

[sunson]

Very likely... and very likely the impact will globally favour regions where living things can thrive easily. I can bet, the rural regions of third world countries will survive easily because they are more or less self-sufficient. Unlike, say, me - they make their own food. They make their own shelter. They hardly make any money and yet they manage to survive without the need for a car or an internet connection. Those who contribute to the global economy (food production) will definitely see a 'loss of value' of their little green-pieces of paper they would atleast have food for themselves since they have the lands.

I wonder how the modern day britain and the suburbs of America will survive given their deep rooted dependence on foreign everything (from plastic goods, food (which arrives from far-away places, thanks to cheap oil) to oil for their own cars).

not so fast

[anonymous]

And yet, in the 210 years since Malthus first started publishing his treatises on population, the one thing we have been good at with regard to Malthusian catastrophes is falsely predicting them.

We're not immune to the consequences of our actions, but neither are we ignorant and unresponsive. It is very unlikely that a human-generated Malthusian catastrophe involving all of humanity will occur. However they can, and have, occurred in small, isolated populations (e.g., Easter Island).

A contraction in energy supply will result in lowering standards of living world-wide, and at the lowest end, people will die (whether it be from a lack of food, lack of medical care, or conflicts over resources). This is the likely outcome of long term energy supply reduction. The West will not escape the impacts, but the Third World will take it on the chin. A Malthusian catastrophe is very unlikely.

Re: not so fast

[sunson]

Do you realize, the 'west' needs the third world for its own economy? For instance, paper and timber supplies to the US comes primarily from the east. US's own paper / timber reserves will not account for US's needs. I highly recommend The five stages of collapse. Though the extremities presented in this article seems unlikely, I don't see it changing until humans out-do their instinctive nature of greed, anger and irrational behaviour that can be seen from time to time, every day - at the household scale to every year - at the national scale. What does the war on iraq reflect about human nature? What about Guatanamo Bay? Its not about whether the west is more smarter or whether its the east. Whatever that is always 'ruled' by someone tends to fail. Its a single point of failure. If there wasn't a USA, there would probably be a Nazi Germany. If there there wasn't a Nazi germany there would've been a Japan or a Soviet Union. Humanity has always fought and it will fight. Like the Sumerians, the Mayans the current day global-village

[bipin]

I am certainly not as well read as you on this topic, but I'm still disinclined to believe that the current oil-crisis is going to have a catastrophic effect of humanity - at least the dire consequences you predict. I've not given it much though to be honest, but my tentative argument is based on the three assumptions

[sunson]

I agree with you on the points you've noted. We've done it before, we'll do it again - I'm confident. But not without a significant impact to the way of life as we know it today.

In short, the future, does not need a youtube or a google.com. The shift will be from rewarding consumers to producers.

By 'fall' I mean, fall of this civilization - not the fall of the species. I'm damn confident we rock at adapting without being helplessly dependent on random mutations to take us forward. However, we still aren't in a position to directly use abundant sources of energy such as the sun or wind for all our needs. We have been harvesting sequestered energy (btw, this link is a must read article if you are an evolution enthusiast) that has been accumulated over billions of years right here on this planet.

A must read is the Hirsch Report that says, to this effect: to transition to a new energy source without impacting the economy, we gotta do it 20 years in advance of oil peaking production. 10 years will have significant impact to economy

[lustymonk]

reddited!

[sunson]

Noticed when I tried to reddit this myself :) Thanks!