“There’s a structural inability of markets to adjust to this type of thing happening, and those weaknesses still exist, and demand is growing faster than we thought on a per-capita basis. Supply tries to keep up, but it’s sort of just this merry-go-round that we’re living in. We haven’t fixed our systems to deal with that, and that’s what keeps me up at night.
Do you think there are too many people on Earth? Are you a little Malthusian in the way you think about all this? Or can planet Earth sustain nine billion humans with ever richer tastes?
We can sustain it. There’s two places where you get growth from. One is through yields: grow more on the same amount of land. Second is expand the area, which is not what we want right now, because most of that expansion of area is basically deforestation. This is why there is a tension between economic growth and ecological preservation. So the question you ask is, how do I grow production? How do I grow yield?
Some vegetarians suggest that a shift away from a meat-intensive diet is sort of a silver bullet. If we drastically reduced the amount of meat that’s consumed, would that solve some of our problems?
It’s not a silver bullet. It’s baby steps. And we should take all the baby steps we want to take. But I don’t think we should make false promises. And if you look at per capita meat consumption even in the U.S. in the last 10 years, it’s gone up. It hasn’t gone down. I mean, it’s human nature. I love us humans, but we’re not such good people.”