sometimes I forget that most of the people living today probably wouldn't be here if not for artificial fertilizer.
@tfardet there's a pretty idea, but it requires great masses of people to agree to give up meat for lentils: I don't see how that happens without that being basically the only option.
I'd bet more on cleaner ammonia production and lab grown meat scaling up... those options don't require as much reformation of habits of as many people. probably the political force of meat producers is the biggest obstacle to lab meat, which is no small thing, but the engine of factory automation favors the vat over the idiosyncratic movement and feeding of livestock for economics in the long run
@2ck
Not sure of hard it would be: we're not talking about people going vegan here, just cuting their meat consumption by 2 or 3... And the trend of increased plant-based diet seems to be making steady progress in Western countries (where meat consumption is highest).
Furthermore, last time I checked it was not clear that vat-grown meat would be a major improvement over cattle in terms of GHG emissions (not sure about other impacts) until a major breakthrough was discovered.
Haber is an interesting case of someone who deserved the Nobel Prize ― but also deserved to be shot.
His development of an energy-conserving process for fixation of nitrogen undoubtedly saved the world from genocidal warfare and social collapse as the Chile saltpeter deposits were exhausted.
On the other hand, his dictum that "in peace, the scientist belongs to the world, in war, to the Fatherland", and his active efforts to recruit science for war, did much to enable genocidal wars.
@2ck though this has been true historically, our current knowledge in agronomy lets us see pathways where synthetic fertilizers are no longer necessary.
A combination of:
- reduction of meat consumption
- increased use of pulses
- nutrient recovery from kitchen waste and human excreta
Would enable us to live in a world where a truly sustainable agroecological agriculture would be able to feed everyone without damaging our environment like we're doing today.