Global food crisis and prime numbers
 

Ok, guys and girls, here is a question.

In Bangladesh, as in many other poorer countries, there is a serious crisis going on right now, based on the cost of rice on the world market. Some folks are having to spend 80% of their income just to buy this inadequate food, as they are rice dependent. (before anyone asks it is really hard to change food habits - how many of you had a burger/or serious Sunday lunch this week?). Just talking to my rickshaw driver proves that life is now many times more difficult than just last year, for people in his class.

The TV is full of questions about whether oil prices and ethanol production from human foodstuffs is the main reason for all of this. Well ,there are no easy answers. All we know here is that there is real suffering in the third world.

So I am wondering if we should not show some solidarity by denying ourselves the electricity supply for one day to power our prime and factor hunting programmes. This simple exercise will demonstrate to us the need to think carefully about conservation of energy, where it comes from, about where we feel our lives are heading and about the needs of others.

By the way, politically I am transparent. I am left of centre, and care deeply for those who do not have natural advantage, this is why I am in Dhaka. I am not an activist, which is why, if you all say no to this, I will say...f*%@ it, on we go!

But if you do care, then lets fix a date to go offline for a day, and lets turn the computers off at the plug. I have denied myself to process anything primewise now for a week with no real ill effects.

Serious regards

Robert

Huh? And what is that going to change, yet?

Is my first thought. And then:

Why only one day? Prime hunting is by definition luxury, as it has no real worth but giving us a little bit of fun. But then again:

Why stopping prime hunting? Shouldn't we rather stop flying to Australia for holiday? Or think about putting our savings in real Renewable Energy stuff rather than in Google stocks?

But the main argument is that Prime Hunting has close to nothing to do with the food crisis. You could as well suggest at a Gourmet's forum to make a Zero-Diet for one day, or at an alcoholics forum the suggestion to stop drinking Japanese Sake.


I have an other theory, though, that I want to throw into the debate:
By saving energy, you cannot decrease CO_2 emissions. If you stop burning the oil, somebody else is going to burn it at your place. The only limiting factor is the drilling capacity; and all the oil that can be drilled is going to be drilled, no matter how much I consume. One could argue that a high oil price is going to increase the drilling capacity, and that the oil is going to be consumed sooner, if I consume more, though. Don't know if that makes much of a difference to the world. Anyway:

My belief is that the only way to shrink the total CO_2 emission by man until Infinity is to buy crude oil, and to stock it in your basement. As a different approach, you could buy the drilling rights for some oilfield, and deliberately not use them.

My question is: why are the environment activists buying rain forrest, instead of desert? It's cheaper, perhaps.

H.

PS: What about a move to the soap box, if I say that it'cannot be a GLOBAL food crisis, given that I enjoyed a very nice dinner, tonight? Some body some :popcorn:?H.

I would say yes if it were the type of thing that if i stoped useing it they could use it. but sadly that is not the case as far as i am aware


I've always wondered about these types of things, It might seem kinda of callus but things like the walk for the cure and bike for abused women

it seems like a waste to me. the people with cancer and abused women dont really seem to be better off by my walking or bikeing they seem better off by the money that it generates

so why not something like "paint old peoples houses for the cure" or " build a shelter for abused women"

something where both your money and your actions help rather than a symbolic gesture.


If it was a matter of devoting cpu time to a project for them i would be thrilled i just can't think of anything that it would be helpfull for.


ps

also as an after thought i think that a pretty decent sum is donated to charity when a prime is found and the award money is handed out.

[quote=crash893;132073]

so why not something like "paint old peoples houses for the cure" or " build a shelter for abused women"

something where both your money and your actions help rather than a symbolic gesture.[/quote]

I completely agree that that would be nice, but the reasoning for doing something like walks or biking involves turnout. If there was a "paint houses for the cure" event, not as many people would show up. Not as many people = not as much money, because people tend to rally around events they like to do.

[on-topic]
This would be a good idea if it in some way directly benefited those in need. Unfortunately, direct benefit again equates to money. So in other words, if we could get people to sign pledge forms that read "I will donate 10 cents for every GHz/hr you don't spend on prime finding or factorization", then it would make more sense.
[/on-topic]

[quote=bsquared;132077]I completely agree that that would be nice, but the reasoning for doing something like walks or biking involves turnout. If there was a "paint houses for the cure" event, not as many people would show up. Not as many people = not as much money, because people tend to rally around events they like to do.

[on-topic]
This would be a good idea if it in some way directly benefited those in need. Unfortunately, direct benefit again equates to money. So in other words, if we could get people to sign pledge forms that read "I will donate 10 cents for every GHz/hr you don't spend on prime finding or factorization", then it would make more sense.
[/on-topic][/quote]
Maybe this would be an even better idea: Have people pledge to donate 10 cents for every GHz/hr that you DO spend on prime finding/factorization! :grin: And it could be called (drumroll please....) "Crunch for the Cure!" :lol: :lol: :lol: :wink:

Being serious now, though, I agree totally, all those "awareness" things are not really helping the actual sick people much. In fact, I bet that a large portion of the money donated through those things just goes to planning more events/drives/etc. of the same nature. :smile:

[quote=Anonymous;132080]Maybe this would be an even better idea: Have people pledge to donate 10 cents for every GHz/hr that you DO spend on prime finding/factorization! :grin: And it could be called (drumroll please....) "Crunch for the Cure!" :lol: :lol: :lol: :wink:
[/quote]

I'd be all for that!

[quote=Anonymous;132080]
Being serious now, though, I agree totally, all those "awareness" things are not really helping the actual sick people much. In fact, I bet that a large portion of the money donated through those things just goes to planning more events/drives/etc. of the same nature. :smile:[/quote]

Yes, one should watch how much money is wasted as overhead although some $$ is necessary to organize, fundraise, etc. In one I participate in (MS walk) the website says: "Seventy-five percent of the pledges provide direct services and programs", which I think is acceptable.

[quote=hhh;132025]By saving energy, you cannot decrease CO_2 emissions. If you stop burning the oil, somebody else is going to burn it at your place.[/quote]Good grief! That isn't true. AFAIK no one is unable to buy/consume oil products because they're unavailable; the limiting factor is price, not availability. (Do you see nightly news anchors saying, "No oil is available at any price"? No, they say, "Today's market price for oil was $nnn.nn".)

[quote]all the oil that can be drilled is going to be drilled, no matter how much I consume.[/quote]Wrong, again. If enough people stopped consuming oil, then at some point inventories would saturate available storage capacity, and oil production would have to be reduced.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;132103]Good grief! That isn't true. AFAIK no one is unable to buy/consume oil products because they're unavailable; the limiting factor is price, not availability. (Do you see nightly news anchors saying, "No oil is available at any price"? No, they say, "Today's market price for oil was $nnn.nn".)[/QUOTE]

Not that wrong, I think. The OPEC has a producing capacity of 32million barrels a day. They produce about 31 million barrels. That's why I say the producing capacity is the limiting factor. And the three-digit-price in $$$ proves well that if I don't buy it, somebody else is going to take my barrels, as the price will infinitesimally down, no?

[QUOTE=cheesehead;132103]Wrong, again. If enough people stopped consuming oil, then at some point inventories would saturate available storage capacity, and oil production would have to be reduced.[/QUOTE]

That's Utopia. If enough people stopped using oil, the price would go down, and other people would start using it.

H.

[quote=hhh;132117]The OPEC has a producing capacity of 32million barrels a day. They produce about 31 million barrels. That's why I say the producing capacity is the limiting factor.[/quote]My response was directed only to the "By saving ... your place" sentence pair that I quoted immediately above it. Those two sentences had no reference to production capacity, and neither did my response.

My reference to "limiting factor" referred to an individual's ability to buy oil in the present market. I guess I did assume that no individual would bid to buy an amount which exceeded the world's unused production capacity, but I think that's pretty reasonable for what my response was actually directed to.

[quote]And the three-digit-price in $$$ proves well that if I don't buy it, somebody else is going to take my barrels, as the price will infinitesimally down, no?[/quote](A) No. A three-digit price doesn't prove that any more than a two-digit price did a few years ago.

(B) Again, the statements of yours to which I was responding at that point were, "By saving energy, you cannot decrease CO_2 emissions. If you stop burning the oil, somebody else is going to burn it at your place." Your logic there is faulty.

Suppose I decide to take the bus instead of driving my car tomorrow. Your logic would seem to require then that someone else is [I]necessarily[/I] going to balance my nonconsumption by driving their car an equivalent distance instead of taking the bus. Why should that necessarily happen? (If it doesn't happen, your statement will be wrong.)

If you disagree, then tell us exactly how my decision to burn less oil product tomorrow must cause someone else to burn that much more.

The three-digit price proves the high demand. And the fact that the oil producers are near their limit capacity (and are exploiting these oil containing stones in Canada etc.) proves that the demand is higher than the supply.

And what I claim is that the demand is well above the supply, in a way that even if all the ecologists of the world bought a coffin and committed suicide, it would still be above. You can argue about that claim. I don't have the numbers.

In economics, they have a whole bunch of functions they draw to explain the functioning of the market, with fancy names (Price-Demand-Coefficient or so), and at a three digit price, the derivative of one of these fuctions is higher, meaning that there is higher incentive to take the oil I saved. That's what I meant.

If you want to cut oil consumption, IMO, you need to replace it by sustainable energies in large scale, and prohibit the use of oil (etc.). Anything else will just result in higher energy consumption somewhere else. How much would it cost to cover the World's electricity consumtion by solar power, say?

Let's see, 18*10^12 kWh a year; current plants cost about 1$ or Euro or so for one kWh a year. So it would cost about 18 000 000 million $; which is roughly 1/4 of the world's GDP. It's much dough, but in a dictatorship, it would go through, in a matter of 25 years. (All numbers Wikipedia)

And in developed countries, it should be possible to cope, if one would stop to think that one percent of economic growth less is the end of the world. But only by a really strict no more fossil fuel policy enforced by determined leaders (and supported by a group of really rich people who agree not o watch for profit, in this area).

Gotta eat somthing; no rice, though. H.

PS: OK, the bottomline of my opinion is that I just can't hear this "Let's bring down our CO_2 emissions to 80% of the actual ones until 2020" bullshit. Imagine you are sitting in a bar, and somebody says: "I got 20 bucks, instead of having one bottle of Wodka, I'll go for beer, this way, I am less alcoholic per time." He is just as alcoholic, just for another period. The solution is not to change the period, but to go for multivitamin juice as fast as possible. Why don't they say instead: "We'll stop emissions of CO_2 by 2040, and CO_2 emissions for energyproduction are going to be forbidden by then." ? There are countries trying to go this way, Iceland, for instance, as far as I remember. H.

I have to agree with HHH on this one Cheesehead. Any significant reduction of consumption in the U.S. would be met by an equally significant increase in consumption in China or India or wherever. You make sense on an individual level, but taken as a world wide economy, HHH has the right of this one.

The reality is that we are all energy junkies.

I personally have cut my energy consumption drastically but still I consume more per day than the average third world person does in a month. Stop and think about the cost of your comfort. Do you have heat in winter, air conditioning in summer, a car to drive wherever you want to go, etc. Here where I live, the average person pays about $10 per day for energy. Even though I use less than half that amount, I am still a huge consumer.

Much of this thread demonstrates the abysmal failure of schools to teach basic economics, and the absurd rhetoric that follows from that failure as people grasp different aspects of the fundamentals.

"Supply" and "Demand" are not properly thought of as numbers. Both of these are curves or functions. "Supply" is the number of barrels of oil that will be brought to market at a particular price. "Demand" is likewise the the number of barrels of oil that will be purchased at a particular price. There are all kinds of nuances and special circumstances, but the basic principle remains that the price will be where these two curves cross.

In the short term, our individual actions reflect movement along the demand curve. The fact that more of us will take the bus instead of driving is why the demand curve is lower at $120 than at $80. And the fact that someone else will buy and use the oil we gave up is why the demand curve is not that much lower.

In the longer term, lifestyle changes result in a lower demand curve. These changes mean that the price will be lower and the total amount of oil consumed will be lower because the curves will cross at at lower point. But the new cross over will not be lower by the amount of your personal reduction - the new demand curve is lower by the amount of your reduced consumption, but the crossover moves to an intermediate quantity.

So much of the disagreement on this thread is just people grasping different aspects of the truth. Price will go down because usage goes down, but usage goes down by less than the amount you have changed because the lower prices bring in some new users.

Energy and especially oil is a limited resource. It makes sense therefore to use it sparingly. It is not because, in a perfect market model, lower prices will permit people with less means to use what was not used by people who can afford high prices, that it should go on be dilapidated in poorly isolated houses or in cars that have a very poor fuel efficiency. The argument "if I save energy it will be used by the Chinese, Indians, Cambodians, Congolese..." is equivalent to "I prefer to throw away petrol to seeing people from poor countries using it."

In my opinion everybody should urgently save energy, with the biggest consumers supporting the brunt of the saving and the costs. Of course the fact that I almost never use my car is not immediately visible on the global scale, it is not even measurable. But it remains true that global energy usage is the sum of individual usage, there should be global action for fuel efficiency and diminishing CO2 and other pollutants, but the efficiency will come from the individual usage. In other words one can not deny individual responsibility ; neither should one take global responsibility (except perhaps some politicians and industrials tycoons, which I will not name :-)

Jacob

Thanks :goodposting:, to both of you. Now that we know a little more about the actual economic theory, can we say that the theory supports my claim that almost all fossil fuels are eventually going to be burnt?

Let's talk about behaviour changes. We change our behaviour, and the demand curve will go down a bit. Or not, if other countries change their behaviour in the other way. Let's say that it will increase a little less than if we don't change. In the same time, the oil fields empty, and the supply curve goes down. The price goes up. So far so good.

As the price goes up, renewable energies become more competitive, and replace a bit of the consumption, slowing down the price increase.

But unfortunately, they don't play in the same league. It's just plain cheap to drill oil, once you have the drilling rights, and nobody pays for the bad impacts on the environment.

So it will be cheaper to drill oil (not to buy it, but to drill!) until most of the currently being exploited oil fields are empty, and some more.

If we change our behaviour, this moment will be a little later, and the exploited oil will be a little less, but I hypothesize that it will not be of a order of magnitude.

So, my reaction is apathy and resignation.

Of course I have energy saving light bulbs and don't open the window when the heater is on, and I think about installing new better isolated ones, but that's only a matter of decency.

And of course I have some ideas about how to save Earth. What about a global fossil fuel tax that just double the price orf the barril or so, and goes to a fund that supports renewable energy production, in other words, subventions.

Or the deliberate choice not to exploit promising oil fields and to put them on nature conservation. This will increase the price and make renewables more competitive. Heck, if we are able to get rid of Nuclear power in Germany, why not of fossil power?

Resignated again, H.