
The Soil Depletion Crisis: A tragic episode from the 19th century - Petiver
http://www.historytoday.com/alex-richardson-price/soil-depletion-crisis
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noelwelsh
It's interesting to note that civilisation has been messing up the soil since
the beginning. The Sumerian civilisation (i.e. the first civilisation)
collapsed in large part because of increased salinity that came about from
poor agricultural practices. Here are two sources:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/opinion/salt-of-the-
earth....](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/opinion/salt-of-the-earth.html)

[http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sumerian_Civilizat...](http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sumerian_Civilization#Downfall)

I believe, though I can't find a cite, that the Sumerian civilisation
recognised the increasing problem of salinity, knew it's source, but was
unable to bring themselves them to fix it. Much like the issue with global
warming today.

~~~
devoply
We have soil depletion problems now that we can't do anything about. In fact
most problems that we know we have that we will have to pay for later we can't
do much about, other than find other better technology to try to fix it.
That's the way our civilization and humans in general deal with problems that
use of technology creates. With more technology. And as technology progresses
it changes the world continuously. In that sense evolution of technology is
what drives humans and human civilization. Nothing else. And humans have to
cater themselves to their technology. One day soon when general AI is invented
humans will serve AI, because humans serve technology, not the other way
around. Before technology humans served nature or the environment, so much so
that they worshiped it. Now they serve technology.

[http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/soil-erosion-and-
degrad...](http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/soil-erosion-and-degradation)

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CapitalistCartr
He's probably right about Global Warming. We "solved" the soil depletion issue
by making it irrelevant. Topsoil isn't relevant to large-scale industrial
farming. Soil is tested, petro-fertilizers in the appropriate quantities are
added, and voilà, massive crops. The dirt is mostly there as a growing medium.
Its closer to hydroponics than traditional, topsoil-fed farming.

If we take a similar approach to GW, Magic 8 Ball says Outlook is Dim.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
My feeling is that we've conquered poor soil, a pauctiy of trees, bad water,
airborne disease and a list of other disasters or near-disasters that would be
very long.

If we don't figure a way out of it, then we more or less deserve the outcome.
We're simply the most recent apex species. There's no reason to believe we'll
stay that way forever.

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mooreds
The guano wars is also covered, along with a lot more, in _1493_ by Charles
Mann. This tome looks at the reverberations of the Columbian exchange, and is
well worth the read if you are interested in history.

------
anabis
And then, Haber–Bosch process saved the day.

I am in a more mitigation / technical solution camp.

~~~
Decade
Haber-Bosch is only a partial solution, and only for nitrogen. It is a
relatively neat solution, because the entire planet is enveloped in nitrogen,
and methane is readily available, for now.

Phosphorus and potassium are still problems. The primary sources for both are
mines deep in the ground. We can't pull those out of the air. It looks like
phosphorus is going to be a problem earlier,[0] so there are pilot programs to
reclaim it from sewage. Those are going to have to scale up quickly.
Eventually, potassium will also be a problem.

Technology might solve the problem, but it is not a given. It will take
investment and work.

[0][https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/does-peak-
phosp...](https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/does-peak-phosphorus-
loom)

~~~
maxerickson
It's apparently vaguely commercially viable to extract potassium from seawater
right now, so it probably won't be a problem in the future.

(I came across several mentions of it in the course of looking at the state of
phosphorus extraction;
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining#Potash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining#Potash)
talks about mining it from the Dead Sea, but the Ocean concentration is
apparently high enough to work)

As far as hydrogen, if we can get energy prices down (solar looks poised to do
this), there is plenty of hydrogen available anywhere there is water.

~~~
Hupriene
I'd guess you'd get a boost in efficiency if brine mining were to be combined
with desalinization, which also looks to be ramping up in the near future.

------
partycoder
Well, a curious fact is that ancient egyptians mummified cats. And the british
took thousands of them and turned them into fertilizer around this time.

------
08-15
All right, we had an ecological crisis in the 19th century, and the
collectivist attempt to fix it (i.e. state intervention) gave us wars, inhuman
labor conditions, another ecological crisis at the other side of the world,
and _no solution_. The actual solution came from technology (Haber-Bosch a
hundred years ago, and phosphorus reclamation from sewage today).

Now we're facing an even bigger crisis, but this time, the proper solution for
sure is to have an even bigger collective (all the states) prescribe a
solution. So far, it's actually given us expensive and unreliable electricity,
useless ethanol fuel that competes with food for arable land, trade in carbon
indulgences, and again _no solution_. Yeah, sounds legit.

~~~
noelwelsh
The article talks about the period "between 1830 and 1870". Karl Marx was born
in 1818, socialism as an idea only began around the 1850s, and actual stable
governments on socialist principles didn't happen till the twentieth century.

Attempting to frame this as a socialist vs libertarian issue, as you appear to
do, is seriously ahistorical. Furthermore, I'm not sure how a solution arising
half a century after the period being talked about it supposed to be useful to
the people living during that time. Similarly, if a solution to climate change
follows the same timeline and is discovered 50 years after we cross the
tipping point, how will that be of any use? The point the article is making is
one of short-term vs long-term thinking.

~~~
08-15
Huh? What's anything I wrote got to do with Marx? I see collectives constantly
failing to deliver everywhere. Yes, that includes every single socialist
country that ever existed (they were not stable), but also many current
capitalist governments (German energy policy comes to mind), the many public-
private-partnership projects that always go over budget, and any meeting in a
sufficiently big corporation.

Now please don't try to tell me that "collective" applies exclusively to
socialism and that I'm reading things that aren't there. I took the word
straight out of the article:

> These futures are avoidable, but only if _collective_ international
> action... happens.

~~~
noelwelsh
I think the confusion arises from the difference between the words
"collectivist" and "collective".

Collectivism is the name of a political philosophy closely related to
socialism communism, and a term popular with libertarians. In this context,
writing "collectivist attempt to fix it" reads like 1) a suggestion that the
British Empire's actions were motivated by a collectivist government and 2)
that you're trying to tie failure to tackle global warming into a larger
libertarian worldview.

I think it's a valid argument that collective action for long term gain
against short-term self interest is very difficult to achieve.

