Dorothy, et. al., unfortunately, as much as us LENR enthusiasts have tossed ideas around about the consequences of LENR, I can not see (at this point) any structural reason why pesticides would be discouraged by market forces because of LENR and practically free energy. I suppose that the case could be made that a much higher percentage of the world's population will be pulled out of poverty and they will have more leverage to demand organic foods (I often buy non-organic veggies because I cannot afford organic), but there will still be some pressure to use pesticides. I guess that we can hope that the lessening of forces as described above will help. But only time will tell.
LENR will devastate the petroleum industry. The petroleum industry is a major source of chemicals for the pesticide industry. When demand goes down for petroleum, then the price will drop; this will make it much cheaper to make pesticides. But when people have significantly more money, they will be more likely to turn up their noses at non-organic foods. LENR will also help people be more self-sufficient and more able to have their own gardens, even in cold climates. This will lessen the market demand for fruits and veggies. But not by much; and will this lesson the demand for non-organic produce? I doubt it. People will still be driven by the desire to save money.
Excellent point about LENR destroying the petroleum industry and therefore affecting the pesticide industry. That's why I'd be surprised if it were "allowed" to be successful. My gut tells me that we've come up with clean, free energy a bunch of times and have suppressed it. I've read about a few of them.
If there are no pesticides then we'd have to come up with a functional alternative to the monoculture paradigm that we are using now pronto because pesticides and chemical fertilizers are the only thing keeping that going.
Growing gardens and backyard sustainability on small scales is most definitely a strategy - but with economies and schedules the way they are most families here will not opt for using their time that way. This is the first year that I have started to garden my own food in any seriousness in an attempt to produce most of our food myself (and I love gardening!) because it's been the first year due to inflation where growing my own food in earnest has not been more expensive than buying organic food from the store. Also, food quality seems to have dropped low enough where I can grow better food myself. It has been quite a learning curve and has taken a lot of time and effort to get it even started in this extremely harsh environment. Up north with the winters it was much easier actually. Spring through fall were conducive and preservation techniques could take one through the winter - the cold being part of the ability to preserve. Places like where I live at present it is true are highly populated only because of air conditioning and with desalination there would be much less drought troubles and therefore more usable land - but the scary thing is that all the growing zones are changing so fast! Before this was an area that could support different crops than it can now even with sufficient water. The growing zones changing so radically so fast is as much a problem as gmo and monocutures because if suddenly a whole food industry no longer can be produced there could be famine.
Do you think LENR would be able to reverse the climatic changes?
Do you think that free energy is going to make the general populations richer with our present economic and political systems still in place? Granted - it will be a real boon for the environment, but I wonder if it will translate into more money for the masses.
The only way I see people in general raising their own food is if it is impossible to get food other ways and the economy makes it an imperative. In Cuba this was the case when the economy collapsed. Everyone was ordered to use every piece of available land no matter who it was owned by to grow any produce they could to feed the population. That might happen here - but that's not fully raw paleo as most people on this site see it. It is also possible for people to raise seafood and small animals (I'm sure working on it) - but large animals like beef is an entirely different situation. Vertical gardens and rooftop gardens and better urban design can grow more produce - but not a cow.
What different practical choices in terms of land, water, energy resources besides the possibility of LENR can we at present practically incorporate to transfer the global population off of grain/pesticide/chem fertilizer-based diets? It's a question of a global shift that probably takes enough people doing what Joe is talking about to accomplish - 100th monkey style I'd imagine.
Joy, saving money on medical expenses isn't enough I'm afraid. It's not just about money (although changing the bases of our economies would change much), it's also about physical commodities. It's about resources.
No other animal can keep on reproducing past it's ability to find it's natural food supply. We've done that due to a communal effort to "advance" agriculture beyond what the land can normally produce, preservation techniques, cooking and transportation - which will in the long run kill us all and the planet if we keep it up the way we are doing it now.
Of course I want for everyone to have the best paleo foods - who with compassion wouldn't? It's just that it is more complex an issue for the long term when looking at the health of the entire ecological system and therefore everyone that lives in it. We tend to forget that we are part of a large organism. If we kill out the organism, we all die.
We've painted ourselves into a corner - we've grown the population beyond what the earth can naturally provide us of our natural diets thereby creating generally a weakened and sick species and created systems to do it that are killing the planet that our species relies on.
I want to figure out how to heal THAT!
