Feeding Everyone No Matter What

The book Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe presents a scientific approach to the practicalities of planning for long-term interruption to food production.

• David Denkenberger and Joshua Pearce, Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe , Academic Press, San Diego (2015).
• Free Preview: Google books
• Cover on Academia
• Facebook page

Video[edit | edit source]

Description[edit | edit source]

Mass human starvation is currently likely if global agricultural production is dramatically reduced for several years following a global catastrophe: e.g. super volcanic eruption, asteroid or comet impact, nuclear winter, abrupt climate change, super weed, super crop pathogen, super bacterium, or super crop pest. Even worse, such a catastrophe may cause the collapse of civilization, and recovery is not guaranteed. Therefore, this could affect many future generations.

The primary historic solution developed over the last several decades is increased food storage. However, storing up enough food to feed everyone would take a significant amount of time and would increase the price of food, killing additional people due to inadequate global access to affordable food. Humanity is far from doomed, however, in these situations - there are solutions.

This book provides an order of magnitude technical analysis comparing caloric requirements of all humans for five years with conversion of existing vegetation and fossil fuels to edible food. It presents mechanisms for global-scale conversion including: natural gas-digesting bacteria, extracting food from leaves, and conversion of fiber by enzymes, mushroom or bacteria growth, or a two-step process involving partial decomposition of fiber by fungi and/or bacteria and feeding them to animals such as beetles, ruminants (cows, deer, etc), rats and chickens. It includes an analysis to determine the ramp rates for each option and the results show that careful planning and global cooperation could ensure the bulk of humanity and biodiversity could be maintained in even in the most extreme circumstances.

Key Features[edit | edit source]

• Summarizes the severity and probabilities of global catastrophe scenarios, which could lead to a complete loss of agricultural production
• More than 10 detailed mechanisms for global-scale solutions to the food crisis and their evaluation to test their viability
• Detailed roadmap for future R&D for human survival after global catastrophe

Readership[edit | edit source]

Researchers, professionals and students in food security, food engineering, disaster management and public health, preppers

Table of Contents[edit | edit source]

1. Introduction
2. Worldwide Crop Death: The Five Crop-killing Scenarios
3. No Sun: Three sunlight-killing scenarios
4. Food Storage, Food Conservation, and Cannibalism
5. Stopgap Food Production: Fast food
6. Fibre Supply for Conversion to Food
7. Solutions: Stored Biomass/Fossil Fuel Conversion to Food
8. Practical Matters: Energy, Water, Nutrition, Taste, Biodiversity, & Cooperation
9. Moral Hazard
10. Serious Prepping: A Guide to Necessary Research

Supporting Publications[edit | edit source]

• Joshua M. Pearce and David C. Denkenberger, Life After Global Catastrophe: How Do We Feed Everyone? , SciTechConnect. November 24, 2014.
• Joshua M. Pearce and David C. Denkenberger, 10 ways to feed ourselves after a global agricultural collapse - Elsevier Connect, Dec. 9, 2014.

Praise for Feeding Everyone No Matter What[edit | edit source]

• "This book lays out the agenda for a new research field: how to feed the world in the event of a global catastrophe. This could be the most important research we hope never to have to use. Denkenberger and Pearce take a hard-nosed look at where we could turn for food in the event of the collapse of agriculture. Their ideas are innovative and striking, and surely worthy of further development." -- Robert Wiblin | Executive Director | The Centre for Effective Altruism, housed in University of Oxford
• "It's a fascinating read that gives us some great insight about not only a probably state of agriculture but also how different or similar it is to our current state. " - Christian Arca
• "When I first read their manuscript, I was immediately struck by how fearless Denkenberger and Pearce are in taking on really big problems. This book is a real tour-de-force, and represents a practical, thoughtful response to seemingly catastrophic events. In addition, some of these solutions can have multiple benefits even in the absence of a global crisis, like reducing malnutrition where food supplies are currently inadequate, and sets out a research agenda that everyone can contribute to, from individuals to governments." ~Jeff Greenblatt

Discussion[edit | edit source]

1. Reddit PostCollapse
2. Reddit Survival
3. Reddit Mycology
4. Survivalist Boards, SB2
5. The Homesteading Boards
6. FreeRepublic board
7. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Future of Life Institue - MIT
8. GETTING TO UTOPIA Deb Chachra (also posted on her twitter account)
9. Food news for Thanksgiving 2014 - Crazy Eddie's (blog)

Experiments in Alternative Food Supplies[edit | edit source]

• Do you have experience harvesting, processing and eating alternative foods discussed in this book. Discuss them here experiments in alternative food supplies

See also[edit | edit source]

• Feeding Everyone: Solving the Food Crisis in Event of Global Catastrophes that Kill Crops or Obscure the Sun
• Feeding Everyone if the Sun is Obscured and Industry is Disabled
• Resilience to global food supply catastrophes
• Alternative Foods as a Solution to Global Food Supply Catastrophes
• Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions for Alternate Food to Address Agricultural Catastrophes Globally
• Cost-effectiveness of interventions for alternate food in the United States to address agricultural catastrophes
• Micronutrient Availability in Alternative Foods During Agricultural Catastrophes
• Food without sun: Price and life-saving potential
• Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
• Can We Feed Everyone? - CNN
• Mini-farm produces food plastic eating mushrooms - Wired
• UniBio - technology enabling methane to be turned into protein by bacterial fermentation
• Food Security - Food Supply Inc
• How you can save expected lives for $0.20-$400 each and reduce X risk - Effective Altruism

Davos IDRC Conference[edit | edit source]

• Feeding Everyone if Industry is Disabled
• Providing Non-food Needs if Industry is Disabled
• Vitamins in Agricultural Catastrophes
• Integrative Risk Management for Catastrophe Destroying 10-20% of Global Food Supply
• The Famine Foods Database

In the News[edit | edit source]

• 1-4. Bacterial Slime: It's what's for Dinner (After a Catastrophic Crop Failure) - MTU News, Eureka Alert, Newswise, Bioportfolio
• 5-9. Bacterial slime: It's what's for dinner - Science Daily, Indian Daily, Daily Me, Lab Manager Magazine, All About Microbiology
• 10. Bacterial slime may be survivalist solution to catastrophic crop failure - Phys.org
• 11. 10 Foods You Could Eat After a Global Catastrophe - Discovery News
• 12.Bacteria and Bugs Could Help Humans Survive Food Shortage- Nature World News
• 13. Managing food security after global catastrophe- News Medical
• 14. Surviving Global Disasters May Mean Eating Slime - Mysterious Universe
• 15. Bacterial slime: It's what's for dinner - The Global Fruit
• 16. Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday - Daily Kos
• 17. We'll be Supping on Slime in the food apocalypse - Science Made Easy
• 18. Bacterial slime or what to feed the world after catastrophic crop failure - Food Processing (Australia)
• 19. New Book Offers Food Source Options For Catastrophic Scenarios - BetaWired
• 20-26. Elsevier Expands Food Science Portfolio With Seven New Books - Elsevier, CNN Money, Street Insider, Broadway Book World, MW Market World, Knowledge Speak.com, Market Wired
• 27. Bacterial Slime – Supper for the Survivalist - Net News Ledger
• 28. Bacterial slime could feed the world after a catastrophic crop failure- RyPul Threat Assessments
• 29. Feeding Everyone No Matter What - Frequency (vid)
• 30-31. Bacterial Slime: It's What's for Dinner - Wisconsin Ag Connection, Win 98.5. WTVB-AM
• 32. Bacterial Slime: It's what's for Dinner (After a Catastrophic Crop Failure) - Innovation Toronto
• 33. Finding food after a disaster - Mining Gazette
• 34. Finding food after a disaster - Food Industry Today
• 35. After The Apocalypse, This Is What We'd Eat - Refinery 29
• 36. How We'd Feed Ourselves After The Apocalypse- PaleoFuture Gizmodo (~26,000 hits) Gizmodo on Twitter Gizmodo UK
• 37. After The Apocalypse, This Is What We'd Eat BUZZFEED Community
• 38. Here's What We'd Eat at the End of the World - RYOT
• 39. What to Eat After the Apocalypse - Nautilus, Climateer Investing
• 40. What to Eat After the Apocalypse - Issue 101: In Our Nature - Nautilus KQED Science
• 41. What to Eat After the Apocalypse the Trendy Things
• 42-43. How We Could Survive After the Apocalypse - Newser, Lockerdome
• 44. A Guide To The Most Nutritious Post-Apocalypse Cuisine - io9 (~10,000 hits)
• 45. The Post-Apocalyptic Diet - The Dish
• 46. Bacterial Slime or what to feed the world after catastrophic crop failure - What's New in Food Technology Jan/Feb 2015
• 46-47. What Nuclear Winter Would do to the World's Food Supply - Long Reads, BBC
• 48-50. How to survive when the sun doesn't rise: sustainable food preparedness during a nuclear winter - Natural News, Ready Nutrition, The Common Sense Show
• 51-52. How to Survive When the Sun Doesn't Come Out: Sustainable Food Preparedness During a Nuclear Winter Top World Headlines, Christian Patriots,
• 53. Potential future disasters IMDb
• 54. Cool Links / Ideas -Its A Disaster
• 55. Aftermath: Finding practical paths to recovery after a worldwide catastrophe. Future of Life Institute
• 56. Feeding Everyone Talon Newspaper page 9
• 57. Why You Don't Have to Be Libertarian A-Hole to Survive a Worldwide Catastrophe - AlterNet
• 58. Engineering alumni tackle potential global catastrophe - Penn State News
• 59. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Future of Life Institute
• 60-62. Here's how the world could end—and what we can do about it - Science, Daily Starfish, Mini Planet, Science.bio.1000 (China), Gig Casa (China), WanHaujing (China)
• 63. Catastrophic Thinking About Catastrophes Real Psychiatry
• 64 How do you feed the Whole Earth After the Apocalypse? - Eideard
• 65-68 These Researchers Want To Prepare Us For The Post-Apocalypse-Futurism, Malaysian Digest, Waking Science,Tech Geeks
• 69 Book Review - The Bayesian Investor
• 70 How Scientists Plan to Feed Billions Without the Help of the Sun - Lew Rockwell 44k, Madhouse News, Ready Nutrition
• 71 Volcanic Winter Has Happened Before Before Its News 14,578

International Press[edit | edit source]

Australia

1. How We'd Feed Ourselves After The Apocalypse - Gizmodo Australia
2. Bacterial Slime or What to Feed the World After Catastropic Crop Failure What's New in Food Technology and Manufacturing Magazine Jan/ Feb 2015 Issue pg. 10

Austria

1. Welche Nahrung uns über einen nuklearen Winter brächte - derStandart.at (Newspaper/webportal)

Canada

1. Bacterial Slime: It's what's for Dinner #(After a Catastrophic Crop Failure) - Innovation Toronto
2. The Rome of food security Richmond Review

Chinese

1. 细菌粘液——世界末日之人类的粮食 "Bacterial slime - end of the world human food" Labbase (China)
2. [http://news.sciencenet.cn/sbhtmlnews/2016/7/314371.shtm 假如世界末日来临……

——盘点或置人类于死地的四大威胁] - ScienceNet (China)

Dutch

1. Wat eten we? Bacterieslijm! - "What do we eat? Bacterial Glue!" MSN Nieuws (Dutch)
2. Wat eten we? Bacterieslijm! - "What do we eat? Bacterial Glue!" FAQT (Dutch)

German

1. Leben nach der globalen Katastrophe - Wie Bakterienschleim die Menschheit rettet - "As bacterial slime saves humanity" N-TV (German affiliate of CNN)
2. Es gibt eine Lösung für den Hunger auf der Welt – aber sie ist ziemlich eklig - "There is a solution to hunger in the world - but it's pretty gross" Huffington Post Deutschland
3. Wissenschaft Leben nach der globalen Katastrophe: Wie Bakterienschleim die Menschheit rettet [Science] life after a global catastrophe: how bacterial slime saves humanity - My Gully

Greek

1. Τι θα τρώμε μετά από μία παγκόσμια καταστροφή- "What you eat after a global catastrophe" Neakriti.gr
2. Τι θα τρώμε μετά από μία παγκόσμια καταστροφή - "What you eat after a global catastrophe" KPNTN

Hungarian

1. Baktériumon fogunk élni !!444!!

Macedonian

1. Храна за сите во случај на глобална катастрофа - "FOOD FOR ALL IN CASE OF GLOBAL CATASTROPHE"Fakulteti
2. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Daily Macedonia
3. Храна за сите во случај на глобална катастрофа Food for all in case of global catastrophe EHAYKA.MK

Portuguese

1. Que tal um mingau de bactérias para o jantar? - "How about a porridge of bacteria for dinner?" Planeta Sustentável

Russian

1. Ужин будущего - тарелка бактериальной слизи - "Dinner future - a plate of bacterial slime" News.Open.By (Belarus)
2. Feeding Everyone No Matter What - Rahva Raamat
3. Чем питаться после глобальной катастрофы - Mag.org.ua
4. [Чем питаться после глобальной катастрофы] What to eat after a global catastrophe
5. - конверсия материи в энергию и обратно путем добра и света "Conversion of matter into energy and vice versa, by goodness and light"

Spanish

1. Diez alimentos que se podrían comer tras una catástrofe global - "Ten foods you might eat after a global catastrophe" RPP (Peru)
2. Diez alimentos que se podrían comer tras una catástrofe global - "Ten foods you might eat after a global catastrophe" Entorno Inteligente (Venezuela)
3. Qué comer después del apocalipsis - Sanandolatierra.org
4. Investigadores descubren la manera de alimentarnos tras un apocalipsis "Researchers discover how to feed after an apocalypse" Alerta Catastrofes

Slovenian

1. Feeding Everyone No Matter What: Managing Food Security After Global Catastrophe EMKA.SI Slovenian Book Store

Turkish

1. Olası gıda krizine karşı ilginç öneriler - "Interesting proposals against a possible food crisis" Firat News
2. Olası gıda krizine karşı ilginç öneriler - "Interesting proposals against a possible food crisis" Bestanüçe
3. Olası gıda krizine karşı ilginç öneriler "Interesting proposals against a possible food crisis" - Dogu News

United Kingdom

1. How We'd Feed Ourselves After the Apocalypse - Gizmodo UK

Media[edit | edit source]

1. KMO talks to Global Catastrophic Risk Institute researcher, Dr. David Denkenberger - KMO podcast listen
2. Welcome to the "New Backup Food Solutions For Catastrophes" Replay -- American Preppers Network (Jan. 2015)
3. Feeding-everyone-no-matter-what HMONG HUB music video online (~4,000 hits)
4. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Alkeenana News channel
5. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Frequency
6. Feeding Everyone No Matter What Blue Marble Space Institute, Institute of Science podcast
7. The Next Chapter - on PRX
8. In the post-apocalyptic future, we'll eat rats, mushrooms, and bacteria slime - CBC's Spark - Nora Young interviews Dr. Pearce
9. [https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/david-denkenberger-allfed-and-feeding-everyone-no-matter-what/ We could feed all 8 billion people through a nuclear winter. Dr David Denkenberger i