ABSTRACT
Global population has grown exponentially, in fact superexponentially, over a very long period of time. Global economic growth generally exhibits an exponential pattern and has done so since the beginning of the industrial revolution late in the 1700s. There is a great deal of public confusion about the growth of global food supplies relative to the growth in population. Moving from the global to the local level, there are major differences in the food available to humans in different world regions. The historical pattern of food production, consumption, and trade provides a less ready base for extrapolation than did that of population size. As food is energy for the human body, physical energy feeds the human economy. For instance, clear limits bound the efficiency of energy conversion from the burning of fossil fuel.
