I think you've wildly misinterpreted my point. Perhaps it's my fault for how I phrased things. I think these technologies, while undoubtably beneficial, have f

I think you've wildly misinterpreted my point. Perhaps it's my fault for how I phrased things. I think these technologies, while undoubtably beneficial, have for many decades only pushed back the Malthusian limits imposed by nature which allowed exponential population growth while just as many people remained hungry and destitute. We're finally turning the corner where the population growth rate has slowed somewhat (recent UN population projections where increased significantly; e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is projected to have a population of 4.5 billion(!) by 2100) allowing people to get ahead of the rate of increased food production. But we're still basically just using up most of the increased production. Vaclav Smil has pointed out that population growth has been directly corollated to the amount of artificial fertilizers. He points out that even if every bit of arable land was used to its maximum extent, only 3 billion people could be supported. So just think, by 2100 when the UN projects a population of 11 billion, 8 billion of those people will only be alive because the proteins in their bodies use nitrogen from factories producing artificial fertilizers.