That’s a complete mischaracterization. Intensive mono cropping is time and labor intensive because you have to factor in inevitable losses in crop yield (due to blight, pests, etc.) plus the labor costs of harvesting a single crop that all matures at once.
The costs of soil nutrition are also exacerbated because monocropping extracts nutrients from the soil with very little return (there’s a lot of hubbub about rotational cropping with clover and things like that, but it’s not a long-term solution, especially when you’re bleeding money for having a field go fallow)
Building up soil diversity is 100% about working with nature to build crop and soil diversity, and letting natural processes accumulate to produce optimal growing conditions. The issue is it’s not very scaleable, and so grumpy Westerners and urbanites toss it aside because they don’t want to actually grow the food, they just want to feel good about buying it
Yeah. The problem with capitalism is that if you’re not willing to fuck things up for short-to-medium term benefit before moving onto the next thing, you’ll go out of business to someone who is.
Yes, but without fossil fuel inputs humanity couldn’t sustain 8 billion people, renewable energy or not.
My point is that humanity is heading into a foundational tree chipper. Don’t you think we’re already seeing signs of unraveling?
Of course humanity can survive on renewable energy, that’s how we built the Pyramids, but those civilizations didn’t have 8 billion people shopping on Aliexpress or spray cheese on nachos to watch the football game.
I also agree with you that it’s unraveling. But that’s why’d I’d rather try to adapt now and face the reality than pretend I can have Amazon Prime and not participate in killing life on Earth.
Oh, agree. But how many people do you think we can sustain your way globally in the coming decades? We are projected to reach 10 billion by 2050 by some estimates.
I think your argument is sound if the goal is to sustain current living standards in developed nations
But perhaps we should be evaluating whether, if those living standards require such an oppressive system, it may be better for us in these wealthy nations to learn how to do without
Not easy, not even likely, but necessary if we want to have a planet for future generations
Fantastic. Now extrapolate that to supporting 8 billion people, with your kind of gardening and what it will mean for that civilization.
Do you support yourself 100% of the time with that gardening? Or is it a relaxing hobby?
I’m talking about how we got to 8 billion people. Here’s a hint, it’s not by gardening.
So you’re telling me you never drive your car somewhere to buy seeds or tools? And they got to the store without trucks?
The clothes you wear to garden? You made them yourself? You have sheep? A spinning jenny?
The people working at the store to unload the trucks? They also eat food that came into being without gas, fertilizer, or pesticides?
Look, you’ve been gardening with gas, fertilizer, and pesticides all along. You just didn’t see it.
That’s my point. You can hug yourself and pat yourself on the back as much as you want, but without fossil fuels, you wouldn’t have the lifestyle that lets you type away at a computer while your fridge is full of food from the supermarket…
Yes, we have some plants in our garden. But my mom does the planting and weed control.
What I’m referencing is that I’m eating wild strawberries, which I just water. It’s only a few here and there, but the big intentionally grown strawberries were mostly eaten by snails, despite my mom trying to kill them with snail pellets.
I also harvest wild oregano and spearmint, that all grows well.
The rest, which was planted, requires a lot of watering. Though that’s a good opportunity for me to get outside. But on a big field that would take a lot longer and be more annoying. Unless it’s raining that’s certainly something you have to do every day.
I’m not sure if my mom used some fertilizer, she sometimes does. But our main fertilizer is compost, though that’s definitely a lot of work and won’t scale neither.
But back to renewables… that should still improve the situation, since it allows at least automated irrigation and such. For big fields plowing doesn’t work with electric tractors yet afaik
Have you ever tried growing… anything? Do you have any idea what that’s like without chemical pesticides and fertilizers?
There’s a reason agriculture used to occupy most of people’s time.
That’s a complete mischaracterization. Intensive mono cropping is time and labor intensive because you have to factor in inevitable losses in crop yield (due to blight, pests, etc.) plus the labor costs of harvesting a single crop that all matures at once. The costs of soil nutrition are also exacerbated because monocropping extracts nutrients from the soil with very little return (there’s a lot of hubbub about rotational cropping with clover and things like that, but it’s not a long-term solution, especially when you’re bleeding money for having a field go fallow)
Building up soil diversity is 100% about working with nature to build crop and soil diversity, and letting natural processes accumulate to produce optimal growing conditions. The issue is it’s not very scaleable, and so grumpy Westerners and urbanites toss it aside because they don’t want to actually grow the food, they just want to feel good about buying it
Yeah. The problem with capitalism is that if you’re not willing to fuck things up for short-to-medium term benefit before moving onto the next thing, you’ll go out of business to someone who is.
Yes, but without fossil fuel inputs humanity couldn’t sustain 8 billion people, renewable energy or not.
My point is that humanity is heading into a foundational tree chipper. Don’t you think we’re already seeing signs of unraveling?
Of course humanity can survive on renewable energy, that’s how we built the Pyramids, but those civilizations didn’t have 8 billion people shopping on Aliexpress or spray cheese on nachos to watch the football game.
I also agree with you that it’s unraveling. But that’s why’d I’d rather try to adapt now and face the reality than pretend I can have Amazon Prime and not participate in killing life on Earth.
Oh, agree. But how many people do you think we can sustain your way globally in the coming decades? We are projected to reach 10 billion by 2050 by some estimates.
I think your argument is sound if the goal is to sustain current living standards in developed nations
But perhaps we should be evaluating whether, if those living standards require such an oppressive system, it may be better for us in these wealthy nations to learn how to do without
Not easy, not even likely, but necessary if we want to have a planet for future generations
I have gardened without gas, fertilizer or pesticides for years.
Fantastic. Now extrapolate that to supporting 8 billion people, with your kind of gardening and what it will mean for that civilization.
Do you support yourself 100% of the time with that gardening? Or is it a relaxing hobby?
I’m talking about how we got to 8 billion people. Here’s a hint, it’s not by gardening.
So you’re telling me you never drive your car somewhere to buy seeds or tools? And they got to the store without trucks?
The clothes you wear to garden? You made them yourself? You have sheep? A spinning jenny?
The people working at the store to unload the trucks? They also eat food that came into being without gas, fertilizer, or pesticides?
Look, you’ve been gardening with gas, fertilizer, and pesticides all along. You just didn’t see it.
That’s my point. You can hug yourself and pat yourself on the back as much as you want, but without fossil fuels, you wouldn’t have the lifestyle that lets you type away at a computer while your fridge is full of food from the supermarket…
We should have reserved fossil fuels for medicine, chemical, and other uses. Now we are screwed.
We have grown potatoes, and they did fine, until some stupid new moth made holes in like 2/3 of our potatoes.
We used fertilizer and pesticide pellets when planting. I don’t know much, I was not the one doing the planning.
Yes, we have some plants in our garden. But my mom does the planting and weed control.
What I’m referencing is that I’m eating wild strawberries, which I just water. It’s only a few here and there, but the big intentionally grown strawberries were mostly eaten by snails, despite my mom trying to kill them with snail pellets.
I also harvest wild oregano and spearmint, that all grows well.
The rest, which was planted, requires a lot of watering. Though that’s a good opportunity for me to get outside. But on a big field that would take a lot longer and be more annoying. Unless it’s raining that’s certainly something you have to do every day.
I’m not sure if my mom used some fertilizer, she sometimes does. But our main fertilizer is compost, though that’s definitely a lot of work and won’t scale neither.
But back to renewables… that should still improve the situation, since it allows at least automated irrigation and such. For big fields plowing doesn’t work with electric tractors yet afaik