{"id":59254,"date":"2021-09-10T06:52:51","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T11:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59254"},"modified":"2021-09-10T06:52:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-10T11:52:51","slug":"the-nitrogen-bomb-fossil-fueled-fertilizers-keep-billions-of-us-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59254","title":{"rendered":"The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a title=\"Permalink to The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive\" href=\"https:\/\/energyskeptic.com\/2021\/fossil-fueled-fertilizers-keep-5-billion-people-alive\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>Preface<\/strong>. There are two articles below that explain why natural gas fertilizers are keeping at least 4 billion of us alive today.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in this topic, here are a few more to read:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"first-child\">Erisman JW, Sutton MA, Galloway J, et al (2008) How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world. Nature Geoscience.<\/li>\n<li>Smil V (2004) Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the transformation of world food production. MIT Press.<\/li>\n<li class=\"last-child\">Stewart WM, Dibb DW, Johnston AE, et al (2005) The contribution of commercial fertilizer nutrients to food production. Agronomy Journal 97: 1-6<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We really ought to be transitioning to organic agriculture and composting to restore soil to it\u2019s former health, which in turn protects plants from diseases, higher production, water retention, and more.\u00a0 Since pesticides are also fossil fuel based (oil), and we\u2019re running out of new ones just like we are antibiotics, there\u2019s all the more reason to go organic before we\u2019re forced to. It can take years for industrial farms to be restored to good soil ecosystem health.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fisher D (2011) The Nitrogen Bomb. By learning to draw fertilizer from a clear blue sky, chemists have fed the multitudes.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Discover magazine.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>They\u2019ve also unleashed a fury as threatening as atomic energy<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>In 1898, Sir William Crookes called on science to save Europe from impending starvation. The world\u2019s 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\u2019 populations grew, their own demands would outpace any increase in production. What then would happen to Europe? \u201cIt is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities,\u201d Crookes cried. \u201cIt is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in this topic, here are a few more to read: Erisman JW, Sutton MA, Galloway J, et al (2008) How [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[11836,11859,328,554,31744,10124,2516],"class_list":["post-59254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-alice-friedemann","tag-energy-skeptic","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-natural-gas","tag-nitrogen-fertilizer","tag-organic-agriculture","tag-pesticides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59255,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59254\/revisions\/59255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}