3 ms·
Pop. needs to fall back to ~1.7B as that's Earth's human natural carrying cap. - as determined by the pre-Haber Process natural Nitrogen pool. Vaclav Smil, SciA
by unearth3d 1y ago
Pop. needs to fall back to ~1.7B as that's Earth's human natural carrying cap. - as determined by the pre-Haber Process natural Nitrogen pool. Vaclav Smil, SciAm, July 1997, 76–81. More relevant than ever.
Synth. N is not a solution as is isotopically diff. and harms plant cell structure in our food.
- lazide 1y agoThis entire post is absurd. There is no magic ‘carrying capacity’ number, except perhaps a couple hundred million before mechanized society and fossil fuels. And those times were far from pretty. And synthetic fixed nitrogen is not isotopically different in some meaningful way. And even if it was, that isn’t damaging anything.
- unearth3d 1y agoSynth. N results in plant cells (specifj ally sieve plates) being weaker, for instance roof thatching from urea-fertilised crops lasts a tenth of the time of organic. Synth N's different isotope form is also a key way of determining organic food certification.
- lazide 1y agolulz. Manure causes way wider isotopic variaion than synthetic fertilizer (and always has). https://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/period/n_iig.html https://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/period/n_iig.html “ Soil-derived nitrate and fertilizer nitrate usually have overlapping compositions, preventing their separation using 15N alone.”