812
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Bolt@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Fix the system, make a new system, buy discerningly. Have a garden if you can and advocate for more of them if you want. Fight against monoculture, irresponsible fertilizer and pesticide use, copyright abuse, and more. None of that is an irreplacable part of growing food at a large and efficient scale.

By the way, I'm curious about the Haber-Bosch figure. Isn't that the process that allows us to easily make fertilizer, and greatly increase productivity? It seems like that 5% is doing much more heavy lifting than, for example, the ~20% from cow burps.

[-] ZMoney@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Right, those are all irreplacable parts of global capitalism and its ruling oligarchy.

Haber Bosch is basically just squeezing nitrogen and oxygen together with a catalyst to make ammonia. To generate high pressures you need energy which you get by burning hydrocarbons. Legumes and bacteria can also do this, which is why crop rotation and letting fields lie fallow has been done for centuries. But you can't let your field lie fallow if you have to compete with other firms who are burning coal to make fertilizer...

[-] Welt@lazysoci.al 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

They worked out four-crop rotation during the agrarian revolution in the 18th century, they haven't let fields lie fallow since they worked out how to rejuvenate the soil with crops like turnips that could become horse feed...

[-] ZMoney@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Pre-Columbian Meso-Americans were already exploiting nitrogen fixing bacteria with the milpa (corn, beans, squash). Anyway the point is if your yield is dependent on how much fertilizer you produce industrially then the sky is the limit for how much coal to burn.

this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
812 points (91.9% liked)

Science Memes

11021 readers
3560 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS