Feeding Everyone No Matter What

Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe.
Authors David Denkenberger, Joshua M. Pearce
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Academic Press
Publication date
 December 2014
ISBN 978-0-12-802150-7

Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe is a book written by David Denkenberger and Joshua M. Pearce and published by Elsevier under their Academic Press.

Food storage for the entire global population is the only historical solution for a global disruption of conventional agriculture due to global catastrophes such as abrupt climate change and nuclear winter, despite three decades of awareness of the problem.[1] But for large global catastrophes, at least five years of supplies are needed because agriculture would be hampered for that time. This large of a stockpile is economically prohibitive on a global scale or even within the US.[2] The number of global catastrophes that apply is large and the book analyzed five crop-destroying catastrophes (sudden climate change, super-weeds, super-bacteria, super-pests and super-pathogens) and three sunlight-extinguishing events (supervolcano eruption, asteroid or comet impact, and nuclear winter).[3]

The book Feeding Everyone No Matter What proposes more than 10 solutions for providing the global food supply according to Discovery News.[4] Gizmodo reports that Denkenberger and Pearce covered two primary classes of solutions: 1) convert existing fossil fuels to food by growing bacteria on top of it—then either eat the bacterial slime or feed it to rats and bugs and then eat them and 2) use rats and insects to convert stored vegetation (e.g. wood and fossil fuels) into food.[5]

The study that is the foundation of the book involves interdisciplinarity and gives instructions for the survivalism movement. Feeding Everyone No Matter What has been covered extensively by the international media.[3][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]

Claims

The authors, David Denkenberger and Joshua Pearce, claim alternate food sources could feed everyone even if the sun is blocked by catastrophes like nuclear winter, supervolcano eruption, or large asteroid/comet impact. At first this appears unlikely because malnutrition and hunger-related disease now kill 6.5 million children under five years old each year.[15] This is because the book focuses on what is technically possible and assumes global cooperation. The solutions also address crises including abrupt climate change, super weeds, super crop pests (animals, e.g. insects), super bacteria (e.g. disrupts beneficial bacteria) and super crop pathogens. The solution using fossil fuel energy source is natural gas digesting bacteria.[16]

A solution if the sun is not completely blocked is ocean fertilization because 0.1% of the ocean area undergoes coastal upwelling (bringing nutrients to the surface) and yet this produces 50% of the world's fish catch.[17] Ruminants and other grazers can digest dietary fiber, but do not have enough offspring to feed everyone within 5 years.[18] Mushrooms can grow directly on wood without sunlight.[19] Some beetles can digest cellulose.[20]

Cellulosic biofuel production typically already creates sugar as an intermediate product.[21] There are edible calories in leaves, but there is too much dietary fiber, so solutions include making tea, chewing and not swallowing the solids, and making leaf protein concentrate.[22][23] Biomass can be predigested by bacteria so that animals that are not good at digesting cellulose can derive nutrition, such as rats[24] and possibly chickens.

As a backup plan, it is even possible that humans could eat this predigested biomass.[25] In a sun-obscuring crisis, stored food would last the human population less than one year. The book shows how many of these solutions can be ramped up in less than one year.

This book also addresses other issues, including energy supply, water supply, forest products, human nutrition, and preserving endangered species. Furthermore, the book gives instructions for the prepper movement.

Criticisms

The authors themselves admitted a potential moral hazard with publishing the solutions, as for example Mikhail Gorbachev explicitly stated that a motivating factor for reducing the nuclear arsenal of the USSR was the studies predicting nuclear winter and therefore destruction outside of the target countries.[26] However, despite the knowledge of the possibility of nuclear winter, the overall global aggregate nuclear arsenal remains large enough to potentially cause nuclear winter (see: List of states with nuclear weapons). Similarly, though there is a clear and present threat of anthropogenic abrupt climate change, the results of efforts to prevent global climate change have been ineffective.[27] In their analysis, Denkenberger and Pearce argue that the benefits of a food solution backup plan would reduce overall harm to humanity in the global catastrophes over which control is possible and could reduce the damages associated catastrophes over which humanity has no or very little control (e.g. supervolcanos).[28]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bostrom, N & Cirkovic, MM. 2008, Global Catastrophic Risks, Oxford University Press, New York.
  2. ↑ "Wisconsin Ag Connection - Michigan News - Bacterial Slime: It's What's for Dinner". www.wisconsinagconnection.com. Wisconsin Agriculture Connection. Retrieved 2014-11-26.
  3. 1 2 Danny Messinger. "Bacterial slime may be survivalist solution to catastrophic crop failure." Phys.org, Nov 20, 2014
  4. ↑ 10 Foods You Could Eat After a Global Catastrophe Jennifer Viegas. Discovery News, Nov 20, 2014
  5. 1 2 Novak, Matt. "How We'd Feed Ourselves After The Apocalypse". PaleoFuture Gizmodo. Retrieved 2014-12-16.
  6. ↑ - Mark Strauss. "A Guide To The Most Nutritious Post-Apocalypse Cuisine." io9 Dec 26, 2014
  7. ↑ – KMO. "No Matter What." C realm podcast Oct 8, 2014
  8. ↑ - David Denkenberger. "New Backup Food Solutions For Catastrophes." American Preppers Network Jan 8, 2015
  9. ↑ - "Feeding Everyone No Matter What." HMONG HUB music video online Nov 20, 2014
  10. ↑ - "Feeding Everyone No Matter What." Alkeenana News channel Nov 20, 2014
  11. ↑ - "Feeding Everyone No Matter What." Frequency Nov 20, 2014
  12. ↑ - Jennifer Viegas. "10 Foods You Could Eat After a Global Catastrophe." Discovery News, Nov 20, 2014
  13. ↑ - "Welche Nahrung uns über einen nuklearen Winter brächte." derStandart.at 1-11-2015
  14. ↑ - "Wat eten we? Bacterieslijm!" MSN News (Dutch) Nov 24, 2014
  15. ↑ United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2006.“The state of the World’s children.” 148.
  16. ↑ "UniBio A/S - turns NG to fish food." Accessed February 2015
  17. ↑ Wallace, J. & Hobbs, P. 1977 Atmospheric Science. New York: Academic Press.
  18. ↑ D.C. Denkenberger and J. M. Pearce. Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe, Elsevier, San Francisco, 2014, pp. 71-72.
  19. ↑ Hazeltine, B. & Bull, C. 2003 Field Guide to Appropriate Technology. San Francisco: Academic Press.
  20. ↑ Aleksandra Walczynska 2007 "Energy budget of wood-feeding larvae of Corymbia rubra (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)." Eur. J. Entomol. 104, 181–185.
  21. ↑ Langan, P., Gnanakaran, S., Rector, K. D., Pawley, N., Fox, D. T., Chof, D. W. & Hammelg, K. E. 2011 "Exploring new strategies for cellulosic biofuels production." Energy Environ. Sci. 4, 3820–3833.
  22. ↑ Kim, K.-Y. & Chung, H.-J. 2000 "Flavor compounds of pine sprout tea and pine needle tea." J. Agric. Food Chem. 48, 1269–1272.
  23. ↑ Kennedy, D. & Leaf for Life 1993 "Leaf concentrate: A field guide for small-scale programs."
  24. ↑ Johnson, R. B., Peterson, D. A. & Tolbert, B. M. 1960 "Cellulose metabolism in the rat." J. Nutr. 72, 353.
  25. ↑ D.C. Denkenberger and J. M. Pearce. Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe, Elsevier, San Francisco, 2014, pp. 47-49.
  26. ↑ Toon, O, Robock, A & Turco, R 2008, "Environmental consequences of nuclear war," Phys. Today, vol. 61, no. 37, pp. 37–42.
  27. ↑ Yone, GW, Lasco, RD, Ahmad, QK, Arnell, NW, Cohen, SJ, Hope, C, Janetos, AC & Perez, RT 2007, "Perspectives on climate change and sustainability," Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
  28. ↑ Denkenberger, D. C., & Pearce, J. M. (2014). Feeding Everyone: Solving the Food Crisis in Event of Global Catastrophes that Kill Crops or Obscure the Sun. Futures.

External links

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