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I remember reading about how in the Soviet Union, there were places they were irrigating with brackish water and how they were now infertile. The obvious concl
by cameldrv 3y ago
I remember reading about how in the Soviet Union, there were places they were irrigating with brackish water and how they were now infertile. The obvious conclusion was that the Soviet economic system was busted to permanently destroy land for some temporary gain.
- throwup238 3y agoThe American equivalent is the dust bowl. The ancient equivalent is the desertification of Mesopotamia. Etc. etc. Humans are bad at long term thinking.
- WithinReason 3y agoWhich species is good at long term thinking?
- throwaway11460 3y agoMany animals move on before they destroy the fields and return later once it's regrown. Probably not much thinking but this is how your species survives. Perhaps humans think too much.
- ratg13 3y agoThese days I feel like it's more that every attempt at central planning gets weighted down in conspiracy theories. Sadly though, the public's reaction isn't totally unwarranted due to what has become acceptable behaviour for politicians.
- boxed 3y agoTermites are pretty good. It's too expensive for them to rebuild their nests all the time so they don't destroy their surroundings.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat’s different, it happened under capitalism, so it was an unforeseeable natural disaster that doesn’t reflect on the system in any way.
- BurningFrog 3y agoWe've been farming for 10,000 years, and the vast majority of farm land is still fertile.
- rqtwteye 3y agoWe have not been farming for 8 billion that long. The scale of what’s happening right now is unprecedented.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoAnd thanks to fossil fuel fertilizers and land degradation a lot of topsoil is less than 60 harvests from being degraded completely.
- lotsoweiners 3y agoWhy can’t it be amended? My region has pretty shitty clay soil but I’m able to mix in compost, mulch, and other amendments and grow all sorts of tropical fruits and other plants that shouldn’t grow here. Am I missing some reason why the farmers have to rely on topsoil?
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoWhat do you mean, why do we have to rely on topsoil? That's what almost all food grows in. What else would you effectively grow food in? What you're doing by adding compost is basically creating topsoil yourself. Amending can only go so far. In some cases it's literally just been degraded away like when deforestation causes land to be more susceptible to erosion by flood or landslide. You may be able to make soil amendments work while you have fertilizer and added nutrients derived from fossil fuels, but once those aren't economical, you're getting out what you put in naturally, which is a lot less than modern industry has acclimated us to, and probably a lot less than in historical times if the topsoil quality was drained of nutrients that can no longer be replaced.