Nine: Dr David Denkenberger on how to feed all 8 billion people through an asteroid/nuclear winter

If an asteroid impact or nuclear winter blocked the sun for years, our inability to grow food would result in billions dying of starvation, right? According to Dr David Denkenberger, co-author of Feeding Everyone No Matter What: no. If he's to be believed, nobody need starve at all.

Even without the sun, David sees the Earth as a bountiful food source. Mushrooms farmed on decaying wood. Bacteria fed with natural gas. Fish and mussels supported by sudden upwelling of ocean nutrients - and more.

In this conversation from 2018, Dr Denkenberger tells us that while a nuclear winter might be horrible, experts have been mistaken to assume that mass starvation is an inevitability. In fact, the only thing that would prevent us from feeding the world is insufficient preparation.

This episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on December 27, 2018.

If you’d like to hear about other interesting, non-standard cause areas in effective altruism, you could check out these episodes:

• Pesticide suicide prevention: #22 – Dr Leah Utyasheva on the non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates – which deals with pesticide suicide prevention.
• Voting reform: #34 – We use the worst voting system that exists. Here's how Aaron Hamlin is going to fix it
• Journalism: #53 – Kelsey Piper on the room for important advocacy within journalism
• Charter cities: #55 – Mark Lutter & Tamara Winter on founding charter cities with outstanding governance to end poverty
• Wild animal welfare: #56 – Persis Eskander on wild animal welfare and what, if anything, to do about it

Series produced by Keiran Harris.