To D. Valmimki, re. the scary predictions in the links. We now need to prepare for just about anything. It had not been predicted twenty years ago that there would be millions of autos on the road in India and China, competing for the same few barrels of oil pumped out of desert sands. We bid for metallic ores, coal and grain to meet the needs of a growing middle class in urban areas that proliferate across the landscape. When it comes to food, we have far less arable land per capita than does North America or Russia or Australia, and make do with far less of naptha based fertiliser, the real key to meeeting the need for grain. Reality calls for managed population levels that reflect these facts. A cursory look at the numbers point to supply lanes that offer staples to no more than a billion bodies in both India and China, combined. It is up to us, we either pull it off ourselves, or we allow Malthus to laugh in his tomb. eric.
