The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive
Preface. There are two articles below that explain why natural gas fertilizers are keeping at least 4 billion of us alive today. If you’re interested in this topic, here are a few more to read:
- Erisman JW, Sutton MA, Galloway J, et al (2008) How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world. Nature Geoscience.
- Smil V (2004) Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the transformation of world food production. MIT Press.
- Stewart WM, Dibb DW, Johnston AE, et al (2005) The contribution of commercial fertilizer nutrients to food production. Agronomy Journal 97: 1-6
We really ought to be transitioning to organic agriculture and composting to restore soil to it’s former health, which in turn protects plants from diseases, higher production, water retention, and more. Since pesticides are also fossil fuel based (oil), and we’re running out of new ones just like we are antibiotics, there’s all the more reason to go organic before we’re forced to. It can take years for industrial farms to be restored to good soil ecosystem health.
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Fisher D (2011) The Nitrogen Bomb. By learning to draw fertilizer from a clear blue sky, chemists have fed the multitudes. Discover magazine.
They’ve also unleashed a fury as threatening as atomic energy.
In 1898, Sir William Crookes called on science to save Europe from impending starvation. The world’s supply of wheat was produced mainly by the United States and Russia, Sir Crookes noted in his presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As those countries’ populations grew, their own demands would outpace any increase in production. What then would happen to Europe? “It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities,” Crookes cried. “It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
